Mississippi KIDS Count. An analysis released in March 2015 showed that 15 percent of Mississippi public school students (74,299) were chronically absent during the 2013-14 school year. Absentee rates were high in kindergarten (14%), tapered off in early elementary years, and increased steadily throughout middle school and high school. The highest proportion was 36 percent in grade 12. Using data provided by the Mississippi Department of Education, researchers at Mississippi KIDS COUNT compared average daily attendance percentages to those of chronic absence in 152 of the state’s school districts. Despite an overall state average daily attendance rate of 93 percent, there were still 130 school districts with at least 10 percent of their students chronically absent and 11 districts with 20 percent or more. View the district by district breakdown here: http://datacenter.kidscount.org/MS