Students must attend school to learn, and rates of chronic absenteeism and truancy hold back the progress of far too many of the District’s children. The link between academic achievement and attendance is well established in the academic literature. For the District of Columbia to sustain and deepen our academic progress for all of our students, it is imperative that we take action based on the best available data and analysis. This report fulfills OSSE’s reporting requirement as required by Section 2(c)(6) of the School Clarification Amendment Act of 2016, effective June 1, 2016 (D.C. Law 21-140; D.C. Official Code §38-203(k)).2 As required by law, the report includes an analysis of truancy and chronic absenteeism by school or campus and the impact of current laws on improving school attendance.