Thursday, July 24, 2025
As of July 1, 2025, a new school absenteeism law went into effect in Indiana. Its purpose is to focus on improving how school absentee data is tracked and reported - not on imposing new penalties for absences.
Since going into effect, there has been a flood of misconceptions and misinformation being spread online about the new law and what it actually does and does not do.
Senate Enrolled Act 482 aims to better understand the causes of chronic absenteeism in Indiana schools by improving the data reported to the Indiana Department of Education regarding student absences.
The law does not change when a student is counted as absent, and it doesn't require schools to change their local attendance policies.
The law also does not impose any consequences for excused absences, as some social media posts have wrongly claimed. It does not require a parent meeting for students with excused absences, and county prosecutors are not notified about a student's absence if they are excused.
Up until now, Indiana did not have a uniform set of absence categories or a solid system for tracking absenteeism in K-12 schools. All SEA 482 does is create a statewide reporting framework, along with a list of categories for different types of absences.
It is important to note that local school districts still retain their flexibility to decide what counts as an excused or unexcused absence.
The new school absenteeism law simply improves the way school administrations report absentee data to the state so lawmakers can get a better understanding as to why every 1 in 5 Hoosier students are chronically absent and missing 10% of the school year.
More information correcting these common misconceptions surrounding SEA 482 can be found here.
