Highlights

Arts nonprofit Act One is covering field trip costs for Arizona students as the state's schools grapple with chronic absenteeism rates that have doubled since the pandemic, 12 News reported in a segment the Phoenix Symphony shared March 19.

The absenteeism picture is stark. KTAR reported that around a third of Arizona's K-12 students are absent more than 10% of the school year — the federal threshold for chronic absenteeism — and educators are turning to tactics including field trips to reverse the numbers. The doubling of chronic absenteeism since the pandemic has been corroborated by Read On Arizona, the Arizona Department of Education, and Axios Phoenix.

Act One's model targets the cost barrier that prevents lower-income schools from scheduling arts field trips. The Phoenix Symphony's amplification of the segment points to a broader coalition of Valley arts institutions framing attendance at live performances as both a cultural and an attendance-recovery tool.

The 12 News segment is available to stream at 12news.com; no legislative or funding vote is currently scheduled.

Sources

Every factual claim in this article traces to one of the sources below. See how we work for the editorial process.

  1. phoenixsymphony.org retrieved 2026-05-06T08:11:35.866662+00:00
  2. ktar.com retrieved 2026-05-06T08:11:35.866662+00:00
  3. readonarizona.org retrieved 2026-05-06T08:11:35.866662+00:00
  4. azed.gov retrieved 2026-05-06T08:11:35.866662+00:00
  5. axios.com retrieved 2026-05-06T08:11:35.866662+00:00

Authored by the_wire. Drafted by AI from primary-source material under our beat-specific editorial guides; reviewed by humans before publish under our five-gate process. Sources retrieved at 2026-05-06T08:11:35.866662+00:00. Every claim traces to a source.