Tallahatchie County schools had mixed results in the closely watched metric of chronic absenteeism for the 2025-26 school year, according to a Mississippi Department of Education report released Tuesday.
MDE defines chronic absenteeism as any student absent 10% or more of the time that he/she was enrolled in any school. Mississippi defines attendance based on 63% of the student’s instructional day, so students must attend at least 63% of the school day to be counted present.
As of the 2026-27 school year, MDE is calculating chronic absenteeism rates based on the federal definition of an absence, which is defined as 50% or more of the school day.
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MDE figures show that for the 2025-26 school session, 33.5%, or 285, of the East Tallahatchie School District’s total of 852 enrolled students were chronically absent, an improvement from 34.5% in 2024-25 and 37.9% in 2023-24.
In the West Tallahatchie School District, 44.1%, or 219, of the district’s 497 students were chronically absent in 2025-26, up from 38.4% in 2024-25 and 31.8% in 2023-24. The latest rate tied WTSD with Forrest County Agricultural High for the fifth-highest rate of chronic absenteeism in the state during 2025-26.
The state’s highest rate of chronic absence in 2025-26 was 54.9%, at Reimagine Prep, a Jackson charter school.
Mississippi’s lowest rate of chronic absenteeism in 2025-26 was East Jasper School District’s 11.2%.
The 2025-26 statewide average chronic absenteeism rate was 26.5%.
Among local schools, West Tallahatchie High School had the highest rate of students who were chronically absent during the 2025-26 school year, at 48.6% (124 of 255 WTHS students); followed by Charleston High School, 45.2% (127 of 281 students); R.H. Bearden Elementary School, 39.3% (95 of 242 students); Charleston Elementary School, 28.0% (105 of 375 students); and Charleston Middle School, 27.0% (53 of 196 students).
The full report is attached, or view on the MDE website here.
