To be considered "chronically absent," a student would have to miss 10 percent of any point of the school year. In other words, if a student misses nine or more days in a ninety day period, they will be considered "chronically absent."
The Virginia Department of Education has now began asking school districts to track students who are considered to be "chronically absent." This issue has recently became very important, considering that schools that do not maintain a low rate of "chronically absent" students will lose their fully accredited status.
For this new requirement, excused and unexcused absences both count towards a student being "chronically absent." However, "chronic absenteeism" is not based off of tardies and check-outs.
Therefore, students are highly encouraged to attend school for the time they can even if they have to be tardy or check-out. Despite tardies and check-outs not being a factor in a "chronically absent" student, they do still count towards the state attendance laws.
In addition to affecting school accreditation, chronic absenteeism puts individual students at a high risk of failure since they lose time that should be spent learning, and many students fail to make up missed work.