This study analyzes the impact attendance rates of middle school teachers have on academic achievement of students in South Carolina. The factors included are teacher attendance and student performance. The research will give an in-depth look into the affect's teacher absenteeism has on middle school students. And determined whether increased absenteeism of middle school teachers have a significant impact on student academic achievement in the areas of English Language Arts and Mathematics. The literature review highlights the impact teacher absenteeism has on the academic achievement of middle school students. The study focuses on the attendance rate of middle school teachers. Factors examined to access the impact included absenteeism, attendance rate, the middle school movement, the push for middle schools, why middle school matters, academic achievement, English Language Arts academic achievement, and mathematics academic achievement. Each factor was examined to create the relationship of teacher attendance rate and student academic achievement. The data for this study was obtained from the Annual South Carolina State School Report Card. The report cards provided the grade span, number of students enrolled, number of teachers employed, teacher attendance rate, and prime instructional time for the school. A correlational study is used for this study. Correlational research is a type of non-experimental research method in which a researcher measures two variables, understands, and assesses the statistical relationship between them with no influence from any extraneous variable. This research study examined six hypotheses. Teacher attendance rate accounted for 14% of the explained variance in student academic achievement performance in sixth-grade English Language Arts and mathematics scores. Seventh-grade results were 13% and 14.4% for English Language Arts and Mathematics respectfully. Teacher attendance rate had a smaller effect on eighth-grade academic scores. The variances for eighth-grade were 7.3% for English Language Arts and 11.6% for mathematics. The research supports Alspaugh (1998) findings stating statistically significant achievement loss is associated with the transition from elementary school to middle school at the 6th grade level. Based on the Pearson Correlation Coefficient there was a significant relationship between teacher attendance rate and student academic achievement in English Language Arts and mathematics in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Prior research by Ticknor (2012), Miller, Murane & Willett, 2007 and others supports the findings of this study and shows that teacher absences translate to lower student achievement. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]