Ontario goes ahead with plan to dock marks from absent students

And while Ontario schools were closed longer during the pandemic than most jurisdictions, the attendance woes in the province are widely seen. Attendance Works, a California non-profit with a purpose that is very much explained by its name, says data from 31 U.S. states shows that almost half of schools (46 per cent) still had high rates of chronic absence, again defined as students missing more than 10 per cent of classes, in the 2024-25 academic year. That was close to double the rate (25 per cent) in the 2017-18 school year (but much lower than the rate, 63 per cent, in 2021-22, the first year that schools reopened.)