Every year from 2019-20 through 2022-23, Petersburg City^↗ET Schools reported a higher chronic absenteeism rate than the year before.

The rate rose from 28.2% in 2019-20 to 32.7% in 2020-21, 38.8% in 2021-22 and 43.1% in 2022-23, according to the rates published by the Virginia Department of Education.

In 2022-23, that rate covered 1,663 chronically absent students.

The trajectory against the state

Virginia's statewide chronic absenteeism rate fell from 20.1% to 19.3% between 2021-22 and 2022-23. Petersburg moved in the opposite direction, adding 4.3 percentage points in the same period.

The gap between Petersburg and the statewide rate widened from 16.4 points in 2019-20 to 23.8 points in 2022-23.

Inside the schools

All six Petersburg schools in the state's 2022-23 school-level data exceeded the statewide rate of 19.3%. Vernon Johns Middle led at 51.4%, followed by Petersburg High at 47.9% and Pleasants Lane Elementary at 46.1%.

Walnut Hill Elementary had the lowest rate among those six schools, at 27.5%, 8.2 points above the statewide rate.

Nine divisions that never improved

Petersburg was one of 9 Virginia divisions whose chronic absenteeism rate rose every year from 2019-20 to 2022-23.

Manassas Park City^↗ET recorded the steepest total climb, rising 20.1 points to reach 33.2%. Petersburg's 14.9-point climb was the second largest. Portsmouth City^↗ET reached 30.5% after climbing 13.1 points.

The data identify a pattern of consecutive increases, but they do not identify why those divisions worsened.

What a 43.1% rate means

The rate measures the share of students who missed at least 10% of the school year. It does not by itself establish the causes of the increase or its effects on instruction.

Petersburg's chronically absent count rose from 1,064 in 2019-20 to 1,663 in 2022-23, while its fall enrollment rose from 4,211 to 4,272.

Correction (October 3, 2026): An earlier version of this article reported Petersburg's 2022-23 rate as 38.6% and its 2019-20 rate as 25.0%. The state data used earlier divided chronically absent counts by a separate fall enrollment total rather than using the rates the Virginia Department of Education publishes, and its statewide counts treated small suppressed counts as zero. On the department's published rates, Petersburg's rate rose every year from 28.2% to 43.1%, and the statewide rate was 20.1% in 2021-22 and 19.3% in 2022-23, not 19.5% and 18.6%. Nine divisions, not 10, rose in every year; Greensville County, named in the earlier version, does not meet that test on the published rates. The finding that Petersburg's rate rose every year is unchanged.

Source: Virginia Department of Education chronic absenteeism and enrollment files; figures cover the 2019-20 through 2022-23 school years.

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