New data reveals student attendance to be below Ontario’s expectations

New data suggests less than half of students are meeting the Ontario government’s school attendance target.

Numbers from the Ministry of Education show Grade 12 students met the province’s new 90 per cent attendance expectation just over a third of the time.

The data, which includes public and Roman Catholic schools, shows a steady decline in attendance across Grades 9 through 12, since 2021 — there is a break in the data for 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 due to the COVID pandemic.

Starting in 2021 to 2022, attendance records show students attending around half of the time and drop dramatically for the 2022-2023 fiscal year.

For elementary schools, they saw a similar decline in attendance, where before lockdowns in 2020, students attended over two-thirds of the time.

Starting in 2021 to 2022, elementary school attendance has steadily hovered above 50 per cent.

The government is pursuing legislation to make attendance count for up to 10 to 15 per cent of final grades for high school students.

READ MORE: Ontario to make attendance count for sizable portion of high school final grades