(Washington, DC) – Today, Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Department of Human Services (DHS) announced that the District’s Truancy Reduction Pilot Program will expand to every DC Public Schools and public charter high school in Wards 7 and 8 in School Year 2026-27, building on two years of delivering strong results for DC youth. The expansion will connect more students and families to the early, personalized support that the program has been using to help keep students on track and in school.

DHS also released the Truancy Reduction Pilot Program’s Year 2 Final Report, which shows that only 36% of students referred to the pilot in Year 1 were truant again in Year 2—a 64% reduction that reflects the success the program has had so far.

“Every day a student misses school is a day of opportunity lost. This expansion means more families will have the support they need to make every day count,” said Mayor Bowser. “Our Truancy Reduction Pilot Program is showing that when we meet students and their families where they are, we get results. A 64% reduction in truancy isn’t just a statistic—it represents young people back in the classroom, back with their teachers, coaches and mentors. So, that’s what we’re gohttps://lims.dccouncil.gov/downloads/LIMS/62729/Introduction/RC26-0269-Introduction.pdf?Id=247969ing to keep building on.”

The pilot program, which began in August 2024, replaces referrals to child welfare and courts for truant students with a suite of services aimed at early intervention and comprehensive support to help prevent a student’s truancy from increasing and from recurring the following school year. Families are connected to DHS-led services once a student reaches 10 unexcused full-day absences in middle school or 15 in high school.

This school year, the pilot will expand beyond the 10 schools already participating in the program to include all public high schools in Wards 7 and 8, which have the highest rates of truancy in the District. The pilot places emphasis on 9th and 10th grade students. The program is also continuing services for 11th and 12th grade students previously referred to the program who still meet the threshold for participation, ensuring consistent and sustained support.

The Year 2 Final Report covers August 2025 through June 2026 and highlights several key findings: 

• At the end of Year 2 of the pilot, 64% of students who were truant in Year 1 were no longer truant. In contrast, 86% of students District-wide who were truant in SY24-25 were truant again in SY25-26. This positive trend demonstrates that the pilot’s interventions have the potential to deliver meaningful benefits for students and families, both in the short and long term.
• 28% of students re-referred to the pilot either opted to engage in shorter-term services in Year 2, or had parents who decided that they could address truancy on their own, suggesting some barriers have been remediated. Additionally, 18% of families who declined services in Year 1 accepted them in Year 2 to obtain assistance getting their student back on track.
• 38% of students referred to Brief Case Management improved their attendance, and 44% of students referred to Parent & Adolescent Support Services (PASS) for Intensive Case Management improved their attendance in Year 2. Of the students referred to the pilot whose parents chose to resolve their truancy on their own, 41% improved their attendance, suggesting that even the pilot’s first-touch intervention can prompt family-driven improvement.

Read the Year 2 Final Report and prior Truancy Reduction Pilot Program reports.

“The Year 2 Report tells a clear story—early, personalized, family-centered intervention changes outcomes, and when our case managers sit down with a family and figure out what’s actually standing between a student and the classroom, we see real, measurable change,” said DHS Director A.D. Rachel Pierre. “Our pilot program is working, and as we grow into more schools this year, we’re carrying forward everything we’ve learned so far about what it takes to get a student back in their seat.”

The Truancy Reduction Pilot Program has three core interventions: Truancy Education, which is provided to the families of all students referred to the pilot when DHS makes contact; Brief Case Management (BCM); and PASS Intensive Case Management (ICM). For both BCM and ICM, DHS case managers work alongside students and families to help young people build life skills, coping skills, and decision-making abilities, while also helping parents understand their child’s development and how they can support their student’s success. The two approaches differ mainly in length and intensity, with BCM serving as a lighter-touch intervention lasting about 90 days, and PASS ICM lasting six months, with weekly case management and individualized service plans.

Case managers also advocate for students and families who need help navigating systems like education, legal, and behavioral health care. For example, DHS offers mentoring, tutoring, and mental health support through grant-funded providers, available for up to six months to students enrolled in the pilot. Because case management is time-limited, case managers focus on connecting families with services that can continue even after they leave the pilot.

“When this pilot was launched, we committed to following the evidence wherever it led, and it has led us to a program that works,” said Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn. “By expanding to every high school in Wards 7 and 8 and focusing on 9th and 10th graders, who benefit most from support during the critical transition years, we’re putting our resources where they will make the biggest difference. That’s what agile, evidence-driven government looks like, and it’s what District families deserve.” 

Since 2015, the Bowser Administration has pursued a coordinated, cross-agency approach to strengthening student attendance. That work spans programmatic interventions like High-Impact Tutoring, dual enrollment, and career and technical education, alongside direct attendance efforts such as the District’s collaboration with EveryDay Labs, whose personalized “nudge” texts and letters helped drive a 6.3% decrease in chronic absenteeism among the students it targeted last year.

These efforts are paying off: DC has reduced chronic absenteeism by 9 percentage points since its pandemic-era peak, outpacing most peer cities. The FY27 budget builds on that progress with $7 million to grow tutoring programs, and the Attendance Dashboard from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) gives families and educators clearer visibility into attendance patterns so they can step in sooner. Additionally, OSSE announced a new partnership with Rang Rewards and Monumental Sports & Entertainment last month to reward DC students and families for improved attendance with tickets, experiences, and more, starting with an initial cohort of up to 10,000 students in January 2027. Schools are encouraged to apply to join the inaugural cohort by October 31.

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