A crucial first step to academic success is being present at school and ready to learn. This is a particular challenge for students in foster care, who experience considerable home placement and school instability. Missing school for any reason impacts youth's engagement with learning and their ability to do well in school. Chronic absence rates spiked for all students in California since the return to in-person learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching historical highs in the 2021-22 school year. The overall increase in chronic absence can be attributed to COVID-19 and other illnesses, the need to quarantine due to COVID-19 exposure, and heightened anxiety among students due to the pandemic and experiences of isolation. Higher rates of chronic absence are associated with declines in student academic performance. In this brief, the authors explore the most recent statewide school attendance, school discipline, and school stability data for California's students in foster care. In addition, based on conversations with school districts across the state with better-than-average chronic absence rates for students in foster care, the authors provide some best practices for engaging students in foster care in school and addressing their barriers to attendance.