Attendance · School
Packard Children's Hospital/Stanford
0 empty seats, every school day.
On an average day in 2024–25, about 0 of Packard Children's Hospital/Stanford's 15 students were not in school. Its district, Palo Alto Unified, is a basic aid district, funded by its own property taxes, so its revenue depends little on attendance.
2024–25. Attendance funding goes to Palo Alto Unified, so the empty seats are valued at the district's dollars per student. Method and sources at the foot of the page.
Enrolled, but not in school
Each bar is everyone enrolled that year. The blue part is how many were in school on an average day; the red part is how many were not.
What the empty seats are worth
California pays a school's district for each student in school on an average day (its Average Daily Attendance, or ADA). Each empty seat, valued at that year's dollars per ADA:
What better attendance would bring
Attendance rate is the share of enrolled students in school on an average day. Move the slider to a higher rate: how many more seats would be filled, and what would Palo Alto Unified receive?
Packard Children's Hospital/Stanford's attendance rate in 2024–25 was 100.0%. Each point is worth the same wherever it starts, since it is a point of every enrolled student's days.
Behind, and staying away
Each dot is a school in Palo Alto Unified; Packard Children's Hospital/Stanford is the one ringed in black. Across, how far its students were from the state's math standard in spring 2025; up, the share chronically absent in 2024–25. Colour is the share of students from low-income families.
What this does and doesn't show. Where students are furthest behind, absence runs highest. Where the link holds among places serving almost entirely low-income families, it isn't only family income. It fits the idea that discouraged students stay away. It can't show which comes first: missing school also puts students behind. Proving the direction is what the sponsored schools are for.
Students who left
Packard Children's Hospital/Stanford has 25 fewer students than in 2014–15. Its district, Palo Alto Unified, has 18.5% fewer. Had Packard Children's Hospital/Stanford changed at the district's pace it would have about 33; it has 15. A school's enrollment also moves with boundaries, programs and new schools nearby, so read this as a prompt to ask why rather than as a verdict. About 18 more students than that trend have left, worth about $492k a year.
How we worked it out
- Absent on an average day = every day of school missed by every student that year, divided by 180 school days. In school = census-day enrollment minus that. For 2024–25 this gives about 15 students in school on an average day.
- Attendance rate = students in school on an average day ÷ students enrolled.
- Dollars per ADA = LCFF revenue that year divided by funded ADA, from CDE's LCFF Summary Data: Palo Alto Unified's, since the district is paid for its schools' students. It includes the extra grants for low-income students and English learners, so it is what an added student brings, not the statewide base rate.
- Years. The absence collection began in 2017–18, and some districts' figures jump the next year in a way that looks like a change in recording, so this page starts in 2018–19. 2019–20 has no attendance data (COVID). 2020–21 was mostly distance learning, when attendance meant something different.
- Chronically absent is CDE's measure: a student who missed at least 10% of the days they were enrolled.
- Sources: California Department of Education: Absenteeism by Reason and Chronic Absenteeism (DataQuest downloads), Census Day Enrollment, LCFF Summary Data, CAASPP research files and Free or Reduced Price Meal files.
The numbers behind the first two charts
| Year | Enrolled | Days missed | Absent, average day | In school | Funded ADA | $ per ADA | Value of empty seats |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022–23 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 10 | — | $22,957 | $0k |
| 2023–24 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 20 | — | $25,429 | $0k |
| 2024–25 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 15 | — | $27,954 | $0k |