Harbaugh, WilliamMcWhorter, BrianEspinoza, Juan2024-12-122024-12-122024-11https://hdl.handle.net/1794/3024845 pagesThis study uses school district level variation in COVID closures and census data to quantify the effects that virtual and hybrid instruction had on the increases in post-pandemic chronic absenteeism. We find statistically significant evidence of a positive relationship with our best model estimating that each 1% increase in the proportion of the 2020/2021 school year spent away from fully in-person instruction increased chronic absenteeism by 0.20%, after controlling for race, income, education, school expenditures, and family structure. This thesis includes collaboratively produced work.en-USCreative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0-USCOVID-19, Absenteeism, Regression analysis, Online learning, Casual inferenceThesis0009-0009-7084-750X