Caldwell - EdTribune ID - Idaho Education Data

One in Three Caldwell Students Are Chronically Absent

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

At Canyon Springs High School in Caldwell, three out of every four students are chronically absent. The alternative school's 74.4% rate is the third-highest of any school in Idaho with at least 100 students, but it is not an outlier in its own district. Jefferson Middle School sits at 43.7%. Syringa Middle School at 37.3%. Caldwell Senior High at 33.8%.

Caldwell District^↗, with 4,931 students in Canyon County's agricultural heartland, has the highest chronic absenteeism rate among Idaho's 25 large districts: 34.1%. That is more than double the state average of 14.6%, and it is higher than the district's rate when Idaho first began publishing this data in 2020-21.

Getting worse, not better

Most Idaho districts can point to some improvement from the pandemic peak. Caldwell cannot. Its rate stood at 31.9% in 2020-21, spiked to 38.6% in 2021-22, fell back to 30.9% in 2023-24 — then climbed again to 34.1% in 2024-25. The W-shaped trajectory suggests the district faces structural attendance barriers that brief improvement periods cannot overcome.

The scale of the problem sets Caldwell apart from its peers. Mountain Home, the next-worst large district at 24.9%, is nine percentage points lower. Vallivue — a neighboring Canyon County district of similar demographics — sits at 21.3%. The statewide median for large districts is roughly 14%.

Across every subgroup, the rates are high

Caldwell's attendance problem is not confined to one population. Hispanic students — roughly 64% of the district's enrollment — face a 35.6% chronic rate. White students are at 30.6%. English learners, at 34.8%, mirror the district-wide pattern.

The consistency across subgroups points to community-wide factors rather than any single demographic driver. Caldwell sits at the center of Canyon County's agricultural economy, where seasonal work patterns, limited public transportation, and rural health care access create attendance barriers that school-level interventions struggle to overcome.

The district launched an "Every Day Matters" attendance campaign, part of a statewide push promoted by the Idaho State Department of Education. The data suggests these efforts have not reached the scale needed in a district where a third of students are habitually absent.

The school-level picture

Within Caldwell, the variation is enormous. Canyon Springs High School's 74.4% rate reflects its role as an alternative school serving students who have already disengaged from traditional settings — high absence rates are partly baked into its mission. But even removing Canyon Springs, the pattern remains:

Jefferson Middle School: 43.7% (757 students)
Syringa Middle School: 37.3% (671 students)
Caldwell Senior High: 33.8% (1,343 students)
Washington Elementary: 31.9% (492 students)
Sacajawea Elementary: 30.1% (359 students)

Only Wilson Elementary (20.3%) and Van Buren Elementary (24.6%) fall below 25% — and even those rates would be among the worst in most Idaho districts.

The middle schools stand out. At Jefferson, nearly half the students miss at least 18 days of school. These are the years when attendance patterns often set the trajectory for high school completion.

What a 34% rate costs

Under Idaho's Average Daily Attendance funding model, every empty seat is a revenue loss. Roughly 1,680 of Caldwell's 4,931 students cross the chronic threshold, each missing at least 18 days a year. The cumulative attendance losses represent millions in foregone state funding for a district that, by every demographic measure, needs the money most.

Caldwell's rate has been above 30% in every year of available data. The district has never known a period where chronic absenteeism was not a crisis: 31.9%, 38.6%, 31.1%, 30.9%, 34.1%. No sustained improvement. No downward trend. The district that needs the most help showing up is the one where showing up remains hardest.

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Idaho's Chronic Absenteeism Recovery Has Nearly Stalled

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT

In this series: Idaho 2024-25 Chronic Absenteeism.

The numbers told a recovery story for two years. Idaho's chronic absenteeism rate fell from its pandemic peak of 20.6% in 2021-22 to 17.1%, then 15.0% — steep, reassuring drops that suggested the attendance crisis was resolving itself.

Then the floor went soft.

In 2024-25, Idaho's rate fell just 0.4 percentage points, to 14.6%. That deceleration — from a 3.5-point improvement to a 2.1-point improvement to barely any movement at all — is the pattern that should concern state leaders more than the rate itself. The state still has 44,640 students missing at least 10% of school days, and the trajectory suggests this number may not shrink much further without new intervention.

The deceleration is the story

Idaho's 14.6% rate looks modest compared to states like Oregon (33%) or New Mexico (30%+). State Superintendent Debbie Critchfield has pointed to Idaho's emphasis on in-person learning during the pandemic as a factor in the state's relatively lower rates.

But the year-over-year trajectory undermines the optimism. The improvement from 2022 to 2023 was dramatic: 3.5 percentage points, representing roughly 10,700 fewer chronically absent students. The next year delivered 2.1 points. This year, 0.4 points — equivalent to about 1,600 fewer students. At this pace, Idaho would need more than a decade to reach 10%, a threshold many attendance researchers consider healthy.

The pattern is not unique to Idaho — national data from Attendance Works shows similar deceleration across many states as the "easy" post-pandemic recovery gains run out and harder structural barriers remain.

Nearly half of districts are going the wrong direction

The state average obscures a deeper split. Of 135 districts with multi-year data, 65 — 48.1% — have higher chronic absenteeism now than when data collection began in 2020-21. That baseline was itself a COVID-affected year, making these increases especially troubling.

The worsened list includes some of the state's largest districts. Mountain Home^↗ jumped 13.7 percentage points, to 24.9%. Coeur d'Alene^↗ rose 7.4 points, to 20.7%. Moscow^↗ nearly doubled, from 8.6% to 16.1%. Boise^↗, the state's largest district with 21,623 students, sits at 21.0% — three points above its 2021 level.

Who recovered, who didn't

The subgroup data reveals a sharp divide. Native American students — Idaho's most-improved group — dropped 11.5 percentage points, from 32.8% to 21.3%. Black students improved by 6.2 points. Homeless students, despite still facing a 30.6% rate, improved by 5.7 points from their 2021 level.

But foster care youth moved in the opposite direction: their rate rose from 24.2% to 27.1%, making them the only student group where chronic absenteeism is still climbing. White students, who make up 72% of Idaho's enrollment, barely budged — down just 0.1 points to 12.9%.

The pattern suggests the easiest gains came from the groups with the highest rates and the most obvious pandemic-related disruptions. The remaining 14.6% reflects attendance barriers that predate COVID and resist the kind of broad-based interventions — return-to-school campaigns, attendance awareness weeks — that drove the initial recovery.

What the plateau means

Idaho funds schools based on Average Daily Attendance, meaning each absent day costs districts approximately $45 per student. With 44,640 students chronically absent — each missing at least 18 days per year — the cumulative cost runs into the tens of millions in lost state funding, separate from the academic consequences.

The state has no statewide attendance intervention program comparable to those in Connecticut or Oregon. Individual districts have launched campaigns. Caldwell^↗ ran an "Every Day Matters" initiative. Boise has partnered with community organizations. The results have been uneven.

The deceleration from 3.5 points of improvement to 0.4 points suggests that whatever was working has largely run its course. Idaho has not yet decided whether 14.6% is the new normal or a plateau worth fighting through.

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Boise Shrinks While Its Suburbs Nearly Triple

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 12:00:00 GMT

In the shadow of Nampa's four closed elementary schools, the Vallivue School District^↗ broke ground on two new ones. The districts share a border. They do not share a trajectory.

Vallivue has grown from 3,888 students to 10,700 since 2002, a 175.2% increase that has made it one of the fastest-expanding districts in Idaho. Across the Treasure Valley, Boise Independent District^↗ has moved in the opposite direction, losing 4,604 students over the same period, a 17.5% decline from its 2002 enrollment of 26,321. The state's capital city school district now enrolls fewer students than at any point in the 25-year dataset.

The pattern is a suburban donut: families and enrollment flowing outward from the urban core to the suburban fringe, hollowing out the center while inflating the edges.

The Donut Takes Shape

The seven largest Treasure Valley districts have split into three distinct rings since 2002, each on its own trajectory.

The outer ring, Kuna^↗ (+81.4%), Middleton^↗ (+92.6%), and Vallivue (+175.2%), has collectively more than doubled its enrollment, rising from 9,314 students in 2002 to 20,800 in 2025-26. These districts sit at the suburban fringe where new housing subdivisions are reshaping formerly agricultural land into bedroom communities.

The inner ring, West Ada^↗, Nampa^↗, and Caldwell^↗, grew substantially through 2020 but has since reversed. West Ada, Idaho's largest district, peaked at 40,326 students in 2019-20 and has since shed 2,407 students, a 6.0% decline. Nampa peaked even earlier, at 15,776 in 2012-13, and has dropped 20.9% from that high. Caldwell is down 19.5% since 2019-20 alone.

And then there is the core. Boise has lost students in 18 of the past 24 years, including every year since 2019-20. The current six-year decline streak has erased 3,767 students, a 14.8% contraction.

Indexed to 2002, the outer ring now sits at 223, meaning it enrolls more than twice what it did 24 years ago. The inner ring stands at 130. Boise is at 83. That spread, 140 index points between the core and the fringe, captures how thoroughly the geography of enrollment has shifted.

Where the Growth Went

Since 2019-20, the Treasure Valley's four largest traditional districts, Boise, West Ada, Nampa, and Caldwell, have collectively lost 8,933 students. Only Vallivue (+1,160), Middleton (+335), and Kuna (+81) gained.

Vallivue crossed 10,000 students for the first time in 2023-24 and reached 10,700 this year. The district opened two new elementary schools for 2025-26 after a $78 million bond passed on its third attempt. Without them, average class sizes would have reached 35 students, according to the district.

The contrast with next-door Nampa is stark. Nampa has lost 3,303 students from its 2013 peak, a decline of 20.9%, and closed four elementary schools in the summer of 2024. Two districts separated by a boundary line: one building schools, the other shuttering them.

Housing Costs Are Sorting Families by Income

The Treasure Valley's population has boomed during this period. Ada and Canyon counties have gained new residents while losing public school students at a rate of nearly 14 to one since 2020. That ratio captures the core mechanism: the new arrivals skew older, without school-age children, while rising housing costs push younger families to the periphery.

The Boise School District itself has identified the dynamic plainly. In a 2024 statement to CBS2, the district listed its enrollment drivers:

"Declining birth rate in Idaho and Ada County ... Rising housing prices and lack of affordable housing ... Boise area is attracting older adults, i.e., retired individuals, as noted in national news."

The district concluded that "our ability to impact enrollment in any significant way is severely limited when compared to external socio-economic forces such as housing costs, personal family dynamics and employment factors."

Eagle, which sits within the West Ada district, saw its median age increase by 11.5 years between 2000 and 2021, reaching nearly 47. The national average increased about four years over the same period. When a community's median age rises three times faster than the country's, its schools feel it.

The Kindergarten Signal

The pipeline data makes the trajectory visible a decade before it arrives at 12th grade. Boise enrolled 1,868 kindergartners in 2002 and 1,269 in 2025-26, a 32.1% decline. The outer suburban ring (Kuna, Middleton, and Vallivue combined) enrolled 686 kindergartners in 2002 and 1,401 this year, a 104.2% increase.

The two lines crossed around 2023. For the first time, the three outer-ring districts collectively enrolled more kindergartners than Boise. This is the leading edge of the donut: where kindergartners are enrolling today determines where high school seniors will be in 2038.

Boise now graduates 1,945 seniors per year but enrolls only 1,269 kindergartners, a ratio of 1.53 to 1. Each graduating class is being replaced by a smaller entering class, locking in continued decline for at least a decade absent a reversal in housing affordability or migration patterns.

West Ada Joins the Core

The most consequential shift in recent years is West Ada's turn from growth to contraction. For 18 consecutive years through 2020, Idaho's largest district added students, growing from 25,061 to 40,326. It has now declined for three straight years, losing 487 students in 2023-24, 213 in 2024-25, and 538 in 2025-26.

West Ada's boundary redrawing process, which began in September 2025, reflects the internal version of the same pressure: some schools within the district are overcrowded while others have empty seats. Growth has not stopped within the district's boundaries. It has merely shifted to the edges, replicating the valley-wide donut pattern at a smaller scale.

Boise's share of statewide enrollment has fallen from 10.7% in 2002 to 6.9% in 2025-26. If West Ada's decline continues, the inner ring's share will contract further, concentrating growth in districts that may lack the infrastructure to absorb it.

Two districts, one boundary line

Nampa closed Centennial, Snake River, Greenhurst, and West Middle School in the summer of 2024. The buildings sat in neighborhoods where the children had thinned out. Across the boundary line, Vallivue opened Warhawk and Falcon Ridge that same August, funded by a $78 million bond that passed on its third try.

Idaho enrollment data contains no demographic breakdowns, so the racial and economic dimensions of this sorting remain invisible in the numbers. But the operational consequences are concrete: Boise manages a building portfolio designed for 26,000 students with fewer than 22,000 inside them. Vallivue has already purchased 87 acres for the schools it will need after the ones it just built fill up. The donut keeps widening, and the districts at its center keep hollowing out.

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Vallivue Crossed 10,000 Students While Its Neighbors Shrink

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Vallivue^↗ School District has nearly tripled. From 3,888 students and 20th place among Idaho districts, it has climbed to 10,700 and sixth. The gap with its neighbor Nampa^↗ has closed from 7,784 students to 1,773. Vallivue was a small suburban system in the shadow of Canyon County's two established players. It is not in anyone's shadow now.

This is not a story about a state growing and all boats rising. Idaho's statewide enrollment grew 27.6% over the same period. Vallivue grew at more than six times that rate. And the two districts that share its metro area, Nampa and Caldwell^↗, have been moving in the opposite direction for years.

23 growth years out of 24

Vallivue has added students in every year since 2002 except one: the 2020-21 pandemic year, when it lost 627 students. It recovered all of them and then some by the following year, adding 746 in 2021-22 alone. By 2025-26, the district sits 1,160 students above its pre-pandemic level.

The growth has been remarkably steady. The district added an average of 284 students per year over 24 years, never posting a gain of zero, and only twice gaining fewer than 100 in a non-pandemic year. It crossed 5,000 students in 2006, 7,000 in 2012, 9,000 in 2019, and 10,000 in the 2023-24 school year.

That 175.2% growth rate is not close to any peer. Among traditional Idaho districts that enrolled at least 1,000 students in 2002, the next-fastest grower is Middleton at 92.6%, followed by Kuna at 81.4%. Vallivue nearly doubled the growth rate of its nearest competitor.

Nampa closes schools, Vallivue builds them

The contrast with Nampa is the sharpest version of this story. Nampa peaked at 15,776 students in 2012-13 and has declined in 10 of the 13 years since, falling 20.9% to 12,473. Its kindergarten class dropped from 1,288 in 2013 to 850 in 2026, a 34.0% decline that signals the pipeline will not refill soon.

In December 2023, Nampa's school board voted to close four schools: Centennial Elementary, Snake River Elementary, Greenhurst Elementary, and West Middle School. The district faced $149 million in deferred maintenance across its aging building stock. Spokesperson Matt Sizemore told Idaho EdNews that with classrooms holding fewer students, "the cost ratio was not basically making sense."

Caldwell's trajectory is less dramatic but equally persistent. It peaked at 6,428 in 2007-08 and has lost students in 12 of the 18 years since, falling 12.9% to 4,932. Vallivue surpassed Caldwell in 2009 and now enrolls more than twice as many students.

Meanwhile, Vallivue voters in 2023 approved a $78 million bond to build two new elementary schools, Warhawk and Falcon Ridge, which opened for the 2025-26 school year. The district also purchased 87 acres on its western edge for future school sites.

"It's just a vicious cycle. But for the time being, having something is better than nothing." -- Joseph Palmer, Vallivue assistant superintendent, Idaho EdNews, July 2025

District projections show both new schools filling within five years, with most Vallivue campuses over capacity again by 2029.

Where the growth is going

The market share numbers quantify the shift. In 2002, Vallivue accounted for 18.3% of the combined enrollment of Canyon County's three largest districts. Nampa held 55.0% and Caldwell 26.7%. By 2026, Vallivue has climbed to 38.1%, Nampa has dropped to 44.4%, and Caldwell has fallen to 17.5%.

The total enrollment across all three districts has actually declined from its 2013 peak of 29,217 to 28,105 in 2026. Canyon County's student population is not growing. It is redistributing.

The most plausible driver is residential development patterns. Nampa and Caldwell are older cities with built-out cores. New housing construction in Canyon County has concentrated on the periphery, much of which falls within Vallivue's boundaries. The district sits between the two cities and captures growth from subdivisions spreading west from the Boise metro.

Idaho's in-migration compounds the pattern, but not in the way it might seem. Ninety percent of the state's population growth from 2019 to 2022 came from adults over 18, not families with school-age children. The state's share of residents under 18 fell from 25.1% to 23.9% over that span. New residents are landing in new construction, which benefits Vallivue. But they are not, on average, bringing students with them, which means the district's growth is coming disproportionately from young families choosing new subdivisions over established neighborhoods.

An alternative explanation is school choice: families within the overlapping commuting area may be selecting Vallivue over Nampa or Caldwell based on perceived quality or newer facilities. Idaho's enrollment data does not track inter-district transfers, so the relative contribution of boundary-driven growth versus family choice cannot be separated from these numbers alone.

The capacity question

Statewide, Idaho's enrollment has plateaued. After climbing from 246,184 in 2002 to a peak of 318,979 in 2022-23, the state total has slipped to 314,097. Idaho's birth rate fell from 16.6 per 1,000 in 2007 to 11.8 in 2021, a 29% decline. The largest enrolled class statewide in 2022-23 was ninth graders, born during the 2007 baby boom. First graders numbered roughly 3,000 fewer.

That statewide headwind makes Vallivue's sustained growth more unusual and more dependent on continued in-migration. If the flow of new construction into the district's attendance area slows, the underlying birth rate trend will catch up. The district's own projections assume it will not slow. Residential development continues to press into the district. One project alone, Verbena Ranch, will add more than 1,000 homes on Vallivue's western edge.

Warhawk Elementary and Falcon Ridge Elementary opened in August 2025, the product of a $78 million bond that passed on its third attempt. Both schools are projected to fill within five years. The district has already purchased 87 acres on its western edge for whatever comes after them. Verbena Ranch, a 1,000-home development, is rising on Vallivue's boundary. The bond is not yet paid off. The next one is already being planned.

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35 Districts at Record Highs, 38 at Record Lows

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Vallivue School District^↗ enrolled 10,700 students this fall, an all-time high. Twenty miles east, Boise Independent District^↗ enrolled 21,717, an all-time low. The two districts sit in the same metro area, draw from the same labor market, and compete for the same families. One has grown 175.2% since 2002. The other has lost 4,604 students, 17.5% of its peak enrollment, and has not grown in nine years.

This is the Idaho enrollment story in miniature. Statewide, 35 districts hit record-high enrollment in 2025-26 while 38 hit record lows. The numbers are almost balanced. The weight is not: the 38 districts at all-time lows collectively serve 86,114 students, 27.4% of the state's enrollment. The 35 at all-time highs serve just 33,738, or 10.7%.

The lopsided split

Idaho added 72,795 students between 2002 and its 2023 peak of 318,979, a 29.6% increase in two decades. That growth has evaporated. The state lost 4,882 students over the past three years, including 3,970 in 2025-26 alone, the largest single-year decline in at least 25 years of data.

Of 190 districts with enrollment in both 2024-25 and 2025-26, 125 declined, 60 grew, and five were flat. The losses are concentrated at the top: West Ada, the state's largest district, lost 538 students. Boise lost 513. Nampa lost 256. Twin Falls lost 250. Eight of the state's 10 largest traditional districts shrank.

The districts at record highs, meanwhile, are small. Their median enrollment is 492 students. Only two, Vallivue and Middleton, exceed 4,000.

Who is growing, and how

Of the 35 districts at all-time highs, 31 are charter schools, virtual academies, or charter-like entities. Four are traditional districts: Vallivue (10,700), Middleton^↗ (4,401), Boundary County^↗ (1,697), and Avery (32).

The charter/choice category includes a range of models. Idaho Arts Charter (1,421), Compas Public Charter (1,289), and North Star Charter (1,143) are brick-and-mortar schools. iSucceed Virtual High School (1,785) and Idaho Virtual High School (833) are fully online. The seven Gem Prep campuses, which collectively enroll 3,240 students across the state, are listed as traditional districts by the state but operate as a charter network.

The demand for alternatives remains unmet. At least 10,711 students sat on charter school waitlists at the start of the 2025-26 school year, and federal funding is supporting the addition of 13 more charter schools and 5,900 seats by 2028.

The biggest districts are the ones shrinking

The concentration of record lows among Idaho's biggest districts is the most consequential pattern in these numbers. Boise^↗, Pocatello^↗ (11,437), and Idaho Falls^↗ (9,751), the state's second, fifth, and seventh largest districts, are all at their lowest enrollment in at least 25 years.

Boise's decline is the longest and deepest. The district peaked at 26,321 students in 2002, the first year in the dataset, meaning its actual peak may have been higher. It has declined in nine consecutive years, losing 4,458 students since 2017, a 17.0% drop. Average daily attendance last year fell to 20,317, the lowest since the 1983-84 school year.

A demographic mismatch Idaho cannot build its way out of

Idaho was the fastest-growing state in the country between 2012 and 2022. But the growth skews old. Between 2020 and 2024, youth contributed only 9.3% of total population growth, the smallest share of any age category, while adults 65 and older accounted for the largest share at 17.4% growth.

The mechanism is straightforward. Many of Idaho's new residents are retirees fleeing higher-cost states, drawn by lower taxes and housing that, while expensive by Idaho standards, remains cheaper than coastal markets. Labor economist Sam Wolkenhauer put it starkly: "In Idaho, there are 68% as many infants as there are 18 year olds." Each graduating class is larger than the kindergarten cohort replacing it. In 2026, Idaho enrolled 25,316 twelfth graders and 20,184 kindergartners, a gap of 5,132 students that has widened every year since 2018.

Housing costs compound the problem inside the Boise metro. Rising prices in Ada County have been pricing young families into Canyon County suburbs like Vallivue and Middleton, or out of the metro entirely. Nampa, once a more affordable alternative, has itself begun losing students, shedding 256 this year and repurposing four elementary schools for other uses.

Rural districts on a longer clock

Twenty-nine of the 38 districts at all-time lows have full 25-year histories in the data, making their declines not statistical artifacts of short timelines but confirmed long-term trends. These 29 districts have lost an average of 26.7% from their peak enrollment.

Salmon District^↗, in the Lemhi Valley, enrolled 1,143 students in 2002 and 609 in 2026, a 46.7% decline over 24 years. Caldwell^↗ peaked at 6,428 in 2008 and has since lost 1,496 students, 23.3% of its enrollment. Soda Springs, Marsh Valley, Payette, St. Maries: the list of small and mid-size districts that have never been smaller runs the length of Idaho's rural geography.

These districts face a structural challenge distinct from Boise's housing-driven losses. Idaho's population grew 45% between 2002 and 2022, but births increased only 7% over the same period. The birth rate fell from 16.6 per 1,000 in 2007 to 11.8 in 2021, a 29% decline. For rural districts already operating on thin margins, Idaho's ranking of 49th or 50th nationally in per-pupil funding since 2020 leaves little room to absorb the losses.

In the past six months alone, at least seven Idaho school districts have announced or considered school closures, including Caldwell, Coeur d'Alene, Boise, and Marsh Valley, four of which appear on the all-time-low list.

The acceleration underneath

The near-symmetry of 35 record highs and 38 record lows obscures an acceleration. In 2023, 15 districts hit record highs and six hit record lows. In 2025, those numbers were 23 and 14. In 2026: 35 and 38. The split is widening in both directions simultaneously.

Seven districts have announced or considered school closures in the past six months alone. Nampa shuttered four buildings. Caldwell, Coeur d'Alene, Boise, and Marsh Valley are all weighing cuts. On the other side, Vallivue's two new elementary schools opened in August, and Gem Prep broke ground on an eighth campus in Idaho Falls.

The 121 districts in the middle, 61.9% of statewide enrollment, are the pool from which future records will be drawn. Most of them lost students this year. The new residents keep coming. Their children, increasingly, do not.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.