Most of Indiana is moving in the right direction on chronic absenteeism. The statewide rate fell for the third consecutive year, from 21.1% in 2022 to 16.75% in 2025. Among 396 public school corporations with comparable 2024 and 2025 data, 267 improved, or 67.4%.

Vigo County School Corporation^↗ET moved the other way. In 2025, Vigo's chronic absenteeism rate hit 27.4%, the highest point in its 2013-2025 state data series, while the state average dropped to 16.75%. Among traditional public corporations enrolling at least 10,000 students, Vigo was the only one at its 2013-2025 high in 2025.

Diverging from the state

Vigo County was already above the state average before COVID. In 2019, its chronic rate was 15.4% compared to Indiana's 11.2%. The gap was 4.2 percentage points.

Since 2022, the gap has blown open. Indiana peaked at 21.1% that year and has since fallen to 16.8%. Vigo was already at 25.4% in 2022, then ended higher: 26.9% in 2023, 26.4% in 2024, and 27.4% in 2025. While the state recovered 4.4 points from its peak, Vigo added 2.0 points to its 2022 rate.

In 2025, the gap between Vigo and the state stood at 10.7 percentage points, more than double the pre-COVID difference. Vigo went from above average to sharply separated from the state trend.

The contrarian among large districts

Among Indiana's 30 traditional public corporations enrolling at least 10,000 students, 25 improved from 2024 to 2025. Five worsened: South Bend, Greater Clark, Vigo, Evansville, and MSD Washington Township.

Vigo's one-year increase was not the largest. South Bend worsened by 2.6 points and Greater Clark by 1.5 points, compared with Vigo's 1.1-point increase. Vigo's narrower distinction is the long-run one: it was the only large traditional corporation whose 2025 rate was also its high point in the 2013-2025 data.

Vigo enrolls 13,916 students. At a 27.4% chronic rate, 3,818 students were chronically absent in 2025. That count is up from 1,980 in 2013, a 92.8% increase, even as district enrollment fell.

What the data can and cannot explain

The district's chronic absenteeism rate was rising before COVID, from 12.3% in 2013 to 15.4% in 2019. That 3.1-point pre-pandemic increase matched the statewide increase from 8.1% to 11.2%.

The difference is what happened afterward. Indiana's statewide rate has recovered part of its pandemic spike. Vigo's has not. Direct evidence: the district has never posted two consecutive years of improvement in the 2013-2025 series. Unresourced: the state data does not show whether transportation, health, housing, discipline, staffing, student engagement, or local policy explains the pattern.

The claim that survives the data check is narrower and still serious: while Indiana's statewide chronic absenteeism rate kept falling, Vigo County reached a new high, leaving more than one in four students chronically absent.

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