The Only District in Arkansas Where Attendance Has Improved Every Single Year

Mon, 04 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

In a state where chronic absenteeism just hit an all-time high of 27.7%, one rural district in northeast Arkansas has been quietly moving in the opposite direction for five straight years.

Hoxie School District, a 3,500-student system in Lawrence County, posted a 13.9% chronic absenteeism rate in 2023-24 — down from 28.8% in 2018-19. That makes Hoxie the only district in Arkansas to improve its chronic absence rate in every single measured transition: 2018-19 to 2021-22, 2021-22 to 2022-23, and 2022-23 to 2023-24.

No other district in the state can make that claim. Of the 222 districts with data across all four years, exactly one improved every time.

Cutting the Rate in Half

The numbers tell a clear story. In 2018-19, more than 1,000 of Hoxie's 3,532 students were chronically absent — missing 10% or more of school days. By 2023-24, that number had dropped to 492 out of 3,533 students.

The rate fell steadily: 28.8% to 23.1% to 18.3% to 13.9%. Each transition brought roughly a five-point improvement.

What makes the trajectory so unusual is its consistency. Most Arkansas districts that improved after the COVID-era spike saw their gains reverse in 2023-24, when the state's chronic absence rate jumped 10 points in a single year. Hoxie kept going down.

Against the Tide

The statewide context makes Hoxie's improvement even more striking. Arkansas's chronic absence rate has followed a volatile path: 14.3% in 2018-19, up to 26.9% in the COVID-impacted 2021-22, down to 17.7% in 2022-23, then back up to a record 27.7% in 2023-24.

In that final year, 208 of 240 districts saw their rates worsen. Only 31 improved. Hoxie was one of them — and the only one that had been improving all along.

At 13.9%, Hoxie's rate sits at exactly half the state average. Five years earlier, the district was twice the state average.

A Mid-Size District, Not a Statistical Fluke

Small districts can post dramatic swings because a handful of students can shift the rate several points. Hoxie does not have that excuse. With consistent enrollment around 3,500 students, the improvements are too large and too sustained to be noise.

Among districts with 500 or more students, Hoxie recorded one of the largest chronic absence improvements from pre-COVID to 2023-24, with a 14.9 percentage-point drop.

What Comes Next

Hoxie's improvement raises the obvious question: what is this district doing that others are not? Arkansas recently joined 13 states pledging to halve chronic absenteeism over five years. Hoxie has already delivered on that promise — cutting its rate from 28.8% to 13.9% while most of the state moved in the wrong direction.

The district did not respond to a request for comment.

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19 Arkansas Districts Defied Two Years of Rising Absence

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

In 2022-23, most Arkansas districts improved on chronic absenteeism. The statewide rate fell from 26.9% to 17.7%, and 215 of 238 districts with data moved in the right direction. Recovery seemed underway.

Then 2023-24 arrived, and nearly everything reversed. The state rate jumped to 27.7% — an all-time high. Only 30 districts improved. The other 208 got worse.

Just 19 districts improved in both years. Out of 238 districts with at least 200 students and data for all three years, fewer than 8% managed to swim against the current twice.

Not Flukes

If improving twice in a row were random — if some districts just got lucky — you would expect the 19 to cluster around small enrollment numbers, where a handful of students can swing the rate. They do not.

The group includes Little Rock School District (4,015 students), Alpena (3,093), Hoxie (3,533), and Malvern (2,514). It also includes West Memphis (778) and Des Arc (226). The size range spans from 226 to 4,015.

Geographically, the 19 come from across the state: the Delta (West Memphis, Earle, Forrest City), the Ozarks (Alpena, Flippin, Yellville-Summit), the River Valley (Magazine, Paris, Booneville, Clarksville), the state capital (Little Rock), and central Arkansas (Malvern, Pine Bluff). No single region explains the pattern.

The Magnitude

The total improvement from 2021-22 to 2023-24 ranges widely. Magazine led the group with a 27.1 percentage-point drop, from 36.2% to 9.1%. Little Rock followed with 21.6 points, then Malvern with 19.8, Paris with 19.8, and West Memphis with 17.1.

At the other end, Flippin improved by 2.6 points and Clarksville by 3.2 — modest but consistent, and enough to qualify in a year when the median Arkansas district got 11.7 points worse.

The Divergence

The average chronic rate across the 19 districts tells the divergence story clearly. In 2021-22, the group averaged rates broadly similar to the state. By 2023-24, the gap had widened dramatically — these 19 districts continued improving while the state reversed course.

Seven Fully Recovered

Of the 19 districts with pre-COVID data, seven have fully returned to or improved past their 2018-19 chronic absence rate. That means they not only undid the COVID-era spike — they are doing better than before the pandemic on attendance.

The other 12 are still above their pre-COVID baselines but moving in the right direction. Given that most Arkansas districts are further from their baselines now than they were two years ago, even incomplete recovery with sustained momentum is notable.

What They Share

The 19 districts do not share an obvious demographic or structural profile. They include high-poverty and moderate-poverty districts. They include charter schools and traditional public schools. They include districts with continuous calendars, four-day weeks, and standard schedules.

What they share is the outcome: two consecutive years of improvement during the worst attendance period in Arkansas history. In a state that just pledged to halve chronic absenteeism over five years, these 19 districts are the proof that sustained progress is possible — and the starting point for understanding how.