Douglas County RE-1^↗ET lowered its chronic absence rate to 15.2% last school year, 2025-26, leaving a 12.3-percentage-point gap below Colorado’s 27.5%. The district still reported 9,147 students classified as chronically absent.

Those are the most recent published attendance figures. Douglas County’s rate fell from 16.6% a year earlier, and the number classified as chronically absent fell by 948. The annual attendance population also shrank, from 60,681 to 60,018. That population measures students counted for attendance reporting; it is not the fall enrollment count.

The comparable series runs from 2022-23 through 2025-26. Douglas County’s rate declined in all three annual transitions across those four reporting years, falling 4.2 points from 19.4%. The number classified as chronically absent fell by 3,029 over the same interval, while the attendance population fell by 2,746. The annual records do not follow the same students over time.

A defined comparison of large agencies

Douglas County had the lowest chronic absence rate among all 15 education agencies with reported attendance populations of at least 20,000 in 2025-26. This is an editorial size cutoff. The group includes the Colorado Charter School Institute^↗ET, alongside geographic school districts. Every agency meeting that cutoff has the population, count and rate needed for this comparison.

Douglas County had the ninth-lowest count of students classified as chronically absent among these agencies. The lowest rate therefore coexists with a substantial number of students missing school. The median agency rate was 29.8%.

The rate ranking depends on the comparison chosen. Douglas County also had the lowest rate at attendance-population cutoffs of 15,000 and 25,000, but ranked 29th among the 179 agencies with a positive reported population and usable counts and rates, without a size cutoff. Independently counted agency populations can overlap, so adding them cannot establish the share of unique Colorado students covered by these comparisons.

Improvement alongside different group paths

The overall decline did not describe every group. Among students reported as homeless, the rate rose from 44.5% to 44.8%, even as the number classified as chronically absent fell from 226 to 199. For students receiving special education services, the rate edged down from 22.8% to 22.7%, while the count rose from 1,651 to 1,950.

Five of these six selected groups had lower rates. Students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch improved from 33.5% to 30.1%. The groups overlap and cannot be added together. The state does not publish their attendance populations in these district tables, so the different count and rate paths cannot be resolved into a student-by-student explanation.

Douglas County describes school attendance teams that review data and arrange support, volunteer home visits, staff training and prioritized attendance reports. Its student assistance team offers help with attendance plans, interventions and truancy questions. Those descriptions do not establish which practices caused last year’s decline. The attendance files do not record program participation or isolate the effects of changing annual student populations.

The district’s lower overall rate and the different group paths leave a concrete tension for that attendance work: a favorable large-agency comparison still includes thousands of students classified as chronically absent, with the reported rate among students experiencing homelessness moving upward.

Correction, October 28, 2026: An earlier version described attendance-reporting populations as enrollment and compared recovery across a change in the state’s counting rules. It also misstated historical State rates and described an agency comparison as geographic districts only. The recovery claim is withdrawn, the comparisons are corrected, and this article now includes the most recent published school year.

Attendance figures come from the Colorado Department of Education’s attendance reports.

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