Correction (September 27, 2026): An earlier version of this article misnamed one subgroup measure. The 51.1% and 47.3% rates are for students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and the text and subgroup chart now say so.

Correction, October 11: The statewide rates and Poudre’s gaps above them have been corrected to match the state’s published totals. District results and the large-district comparison are unchanged.

Correction (October 28, 2026): An earlier version called attendance-population counts enrollment and described the comparison group as districts. The group also includes the Charter School Institute. Those descriptions have been corrected. This update includes the most recent school year's results.

Source: Colorado Department of Education attendance and truancy statistics.

Poudre R-1^↗ET recorded a third consecutive annual decline in chronic absence last school year. Its rate fell from 30.7% in 2024-25 to 29.8% in 2025-26, a 0.9-percentage-point improvement. The state's records classified 8,633 students as chronically absent, 412 fewer than a year earlier.

That extends a longer improvement in the district. Its rate was 36.6% in 2022-23, then fell 2.4 points in 2023-24 and another 3.5 points in 2024-25 before the latest decline. Across the four school years, the rate fell 6.8 points and the number of students classified as chronically absent fell by 1,785.

The latest reported attendance population was 28,951, down from 29,461 a year earlier. It was 28,497 in 2022-23, at the start of the longer comparison. These are the populations used to calculate chronic absence, rather than an October enrollment count. The annual records do not follow the same individual students throughout the period.

Progress continued, but the earlier ranking did not

Poudre had led the prior year's rate improvement in the selected large-agency group. In the newest published year it ranked seventh by the decline in its rate and eighth by the decline in its chronic absence count.

The comparison includes all 15 education agencies with a reported attendance population of at least 20,000 in 2025-26 and complete values at both annual endpoints. It is the same set of agency IDs used for the earlier comparison. The Charter School Institute^↗ET is included alongside districts, so the group is not a census of geographic districts alone.

The size cutoff is an editorial choice. Broader and narrower screens produce different rankings. It selects peers for this comparison; it does not establish where Poudre ranks among every Colorado agency. Agency attendance populations are counted separately and cannot be added to calculate a share of unique students statewide.

Colorado's overall rate also declined by 0.9 point last school year, reaching 27.5%. Poudre's 29.8% rate therefore remained 2.3 points above the state, the same gap as a year earlier.

The districtwide decline covered mixed subgroup results

Four of the six student groups selected for this comparison had lower rates in 2025-26. The other two had increases. This selection spans race, housing status and services; the groups overlap and cannot be pooled into a single total.

The rate for students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch rose from 47.3% to 47.7%. For students who were homeless during that school year, it rose from 61.5% to 62.3%. The number classified as chronically absent in that housing-status group nevertheless fell from 873 to 803. The state's district tables publish these rates and counts without the subgroup attendance populations, so those populations cannot be reconstructed exactly from rounded rates.

Hispanic students' rate fell from 46.1% to 45.6%, while White students' rate fell from 26.4% to 25.5%. The gap between them widened from 19.7 to 20.1 percentage points. Students with limited English proficiency had a 41.3% rate last school year, and students receiving special education services had a 41.8% rate.

What the mentoring report establishes

KUNC documented a Check & Connect pilot at Poudre High School, pairing students with mentors. The University of Minnesota describes the model as structured mentoring with engagement monitoring, personalized support and family contact.

That reporting establishes a historical intervention at a named school. It does not isolate the pilot's effect on a districtwide rate. The annual attendance files do not identify which students participated or separate the program's effects from other changes in attendance and the student population.

Last school year's districtwide decline coincided with rising rates for students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch and students who were homeless.

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