Cashmere - EdTribune WA - Washington Education Data

The Poverty-Attendance Gap Widened by 4 Points in Washington

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Correction (September 30, 2026): An earlier version of this article said Quillayute Valley had the lowest chronic absenteeism rate for low-income students in Washington, 4.2% among 3,348 students. That figure is not a reliable measure. Quillayute Valley hosts Insight School of Washington, an online school that enrolls students from across the state, and the state reports its attendance as near-perfect without publishing its student counts. Across the district's schools that do publish counts, the low-income rate was 22.8%. We replaced that example with the lowest rates among districts whose own schools account for their students. The earlier version also gave Spokane's poverty gap as 20.0 points; it is 19.9. The statewide figures were not affected.

Before the pandemic, the attendance gap between low-income and non-low-income students in Washington was 12.2 percentage points: 21.5% of economically disadvantaged students were chronically absent, compared to 9.3% of their peers. That gap had been slowly growing, from 10.8 points in 2015, but the increase was gradual enough that it attracted little urgency.

COVID blew it open. In 2020-21, as schools reopened, the gap surged to 19.9 points: low-income chronic absence jumped to 29.3% while non-low-income barely moved at 9.4%. The pandemic's attendance impact fell almost entirely on poor families.

A gap that peaked and has not closed

The gap has narrowed since 2021, but only because non-low-income students finally caught up in the 2021-22 spike year, pushing their chronic rate to 23.2% before settling back to 19.2%. Low-income students dropped from their 42.9% peak to 35.4%. The gap in 2024-25, the most recent year the state has published, is 16.2 points, 4.0 points wider than before COVID, a 33% increase.

The trajectory of the narrowing tells an uncomfortable story. The gap went from 19.7 points in 2022 to 17.4, then 16.7, then 16.2. That is a deceleration: the gap has closed by about one point per year on average, which would mean returning to the pre-pandemic gap of 12.2 points around 2028. But each year has closed less than the year before, and in 2025 the gap narrowed by only half a point.

More than double the rate

In 2024-25, more than one in three low-income students (35.4%) was chronically absent. For non-low-income students, the rate was closer to one in five (19.2%). The ratio, 1.84 to 1, means that a student from a low-income family is nearly twice as likely to miss a month of school.

Washington defines economic disadvantage using federal free and reduced-price lunch eligibility, supplemented by direct certification through SNAP, TANF, and foster care programs. In 2024-25, roughly 544,000 of the state's 1.09 million students, nearly half, qualified, meaning the 35.4% chronic rate applies to the largest student subgroup in the system.

The non-low-income rate of 19.2%, while substantially lower, is itself concerning. Before COVID, just 9.3% of non-low-income students were chronically absent. That rate has more than doubled and shows no sign of returning to its baseline, suggesting that the pandemic's attendance impact was not exclusively a poverty phenomenon, even if poverty magnified it.

The within-district divide

Within individual districts, the poverty-attendance gap can be enormous. In Cheney (5,688 students), low-income students are chronically absent at 45.6% while non-low-income students are at 22.7%, a 22.9-point gap. In Seattle^↗ (51,064 students), the gap is 22.5 points (38.1% vs. 15.6%). Issaquah (19,248 students) has a 21.7-point gap.

These are districts where two students sitting in the same classroom are experiencing fundamentally different attendance realities depending on their family's income. The low-income student is more than twice as likely to be missing a month of school.

At the other end, the lowest low-income chronic absence rates that districts' own schools can account for are in Cashmere^↗ (14.9% of 739 low-income students), Riverside (16.4% of 827) and Brewster (22.8% of 894). Some districts report lower rates, including Quillayute Valley^↗ at 4.2% of its 3,340 low-income students, but those districts host online schools whose attendance the state reports as near-perfect without publishing their student counts. Across Quillayute Valley's schools that do publish counts, the low-income rate was 23.3%. In Spokane^↗ (29,764 students), the gap between low-income students and their peers is 19.9 points.

What the gap means for recovery

Washington's overall chronic absenteeism rate will not return to pre-pandemic levels unless the low-income rate comes down dramatically. The math is simple: with roughly half the student body qualifying as economically disadvantaged, the low-income chronic rate of 35.4% pulls the statewide average up by about 8 percentage points above what it would be if only non-low-income students were counted.

The 16.2-point poverty gap is not just a measure of inequity. It is the primary structural barrier to statewide attendance recovery. Until the conditions that keep low-income families from getting their children to school consistently (housing instability, transportation gaps, healthcare access, childcare for younger siblings) are addressed, the statewide number will remain stubbornly high.

Data from the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Economic disadvantage defined by free/reduced-price lunch eligibility and direct certification. Analysis covers 2014-15 through 2024-25.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.

The Hispanic-White Attendance Gap Nearly Doubled After COVID in Washington

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Correction (October 11, 2026): Washington's state education agency republished its attendance data on September 30, 2026, with recalculated counts for every year, and the figures in this article now reflect that edition. The pre-pandemic Hispanic-white gap is 5.1 points, not 4.9, and the gap has narrowed since 2021-22 by about half a point a year, not less than half a point, which would bring it back to the pre-pandemic level around 2032, not 2034. Steilacoom is no longer the third-lowest district on a measured basis; Brewster is. Twelve districts, not 11, had Hispanic rates above 40% across schools that account for their students. The article's other figures were restated to the new edition.

Correction (September 30, 2026): An earlier version of this article said the districts with the lowest Hispanic chronic absenteeism rates were Quillayute Valley (5.5%), Goldendale (12.9%) and Omak (17.2%), and drew an urban-rural contrast from them. All three host online schools that enroll students from across the state, and the state reports those schools' attendance as near-perfect without publishing their student counts, so those districts' rates are not measured by their own schools. Across the schools that do publish counts, Hispanic students' rates were 16.8% in Quillayute Valley, 44.8% in Goldendale and 45.8% in Omak. We replaced those examples and removed the urban-rural contrast. The earlier version also said the Hispanic-white gap widened more than any other group's and that Hispanic students had the second-highest rate of any group. The gap between Pacific Islander and white students widened more, by 9.7 points, and Hispanic students have the third-highest rate. It also gave the Native American gap's growth as 3.9 points (it is 3.8) and Tacoma's Hispanic rate as 42.8% (it is 42.7%). The statewide Hispanic-white gap figures were not affected.

Before the pandemic, the attendance gap between Hispanic and white students in Washington was modest and stable. In the 2018-19 school year, 18.5% of Hispanic students were chronically absent compared to 13.4% of white students, a difference of 5.1 percentage points. It was a gap, but a manageable one, the kind that school districts could plausibly address with targeted outreach and bilingual family liaisons.

Five years later, that gap has nearly doubled to 8.9 points. One in three Hispanic students, 33.2% or 96,552 children, was chronically absent in 2024-25. The pandemic did not merely widen the Hispanic-white attendance gap. It shifted the baseline.

How the gap grew

The widening followed a distinctive pattern. In 2020-21, as schools reopened after remote learning, the gap jumped to 12.3 points: Hispanic chronic absenteeism surged to 26.8% while white rates rose to just 14.5%. One possible explanation, which attendance data alone cannot test, is structural: Hispanic families in Washington are disproportionately represented in essential-worker occupations, have higher rates of multigenerational housing, and face language barriers that made navigating return-to-school protocols more difficult.

When overall rates spiked to their peak in 2021-22, the gap actually narrowed to 10.5 points as white chronic absenteeism belatedly caught up. Since then, both groups have improved, but not at the same pace. White students have recovered 5.8 of the 16.7 points they lost (34.7%). Hispanic students have recovered 7.4 of their 22.1-point spike (33.5%). In absolute terms, Hispanic students improved more. In relative terms, they fell further behind.

How the Hispanic gap compares with other groups

The Hispanic-white gap widened by 3.8 percentage points between 2019 and 2025. It was not the only gap to grow: the Pacific Islander-white gap grew by 9.9 points and the Native American-white gap by 3.9. By contrast, the Black-white gap narrowed by 0.3 points, and Asian students moved further below the white rate (7.4 points below it, compared with 5.2 points before COVID).

Students of color did not all fall behind equally. What sets the Hispanic gap apart is scale: Hispanic students are by far the largest of the groups whose gaps widened, so the same few points of gap reach many more children.

Where the crisis concentrates

At the district level, Hispanic chronic absenteeism rates above two in five are not rare. Among the 110 districts where 500 or more students are Hispanic, 12 whose own schools account for their students had rates that high. Highline^↗ (7,654 Hispanic students) posts a 43.1% chronic rate. Tacoma^↗ (6,846 Hispanic students) reports 42.8%. Cheney, Lakewood, Bellingham, and Burlington-Edison are also in that group.

At the other end, the lowest rates that districts' own schools can account for are in Cashmere^↗ (14.4% of 526 Hispanic students), Lynden (18.0% of 1,021) and Brewster (21.0% of 878). Some districts report lower rates, including Quillayute Valley^↗ at 5.6% among its 1,153 Hispanic students, but those districts host online schools whose attendance the state reports as near-perfect without publishing their student counts. Across Quillayute Valley's schools that do publish counts, the Hispanic rate was 16.9%.

96,552 students

The human scale matters. In 2024-25, Washington had 291,226 Hispanic students, up from 263,977 before the pandemic. The Hispanic share of total enrollment has grown from 23.7% to 26.7%, meaning the group with the third-highest chronic absenteeism rate of any racial or ethnic group is also growing as a share of the student body.

If the Hispanic chronic rate had stayed at its pre-COVID level of 18.5%, roughly 43,000 fewer Hispanic students would have been chronically absent in 2024-25. Instead, 96,552 were, a number well below the 111,700 peak in 2021-22 but still roughly double the pre-pandemic level despite three years of statewide recovery.

The gap is not closing

The trajectory since 2022 is discouraging. The Hispanic-white gap went from 10.5 points in 2022 to 9.6 in 2023, 9.2 in 2024, and 8.9 in 2025. That is narrowing, but at a pace of about half a point per year. At this rate, Washington would not return to the pre-pandemic gap of 5.1 points until about 2032.

Washington's attendance recovery strategies have been largely universal in design, targeted at all students, not at the communities where the crisis is most acute. The gap-narrowing pace of about half a point per year is an answer of sorts: universal approaches are not closing a disparity this large. At 96,552 students, this is no longer a gap. It is a parallel attendance system, split along lines of language and income.

Data from the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Analysis covers 2014-15 through 2024-25. The 2019-20 school year is excluded due to COVID-related attendance tracking anomalies.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.