BackgroundA robust literature-base on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) provides strong evidence on the relationships between social adversity in childhood and the health and well-being of individuals across the lifespan. One form of social adversity, exposure to violence in childhood, is not only harmful to a child's health and well-being, but detrimental to their performance in school. Poor performance in school may affect educational attainment later in life and hinder a child's upward social mobility. We focus on the impact of violence-related ACEs on school success factors to add new evidence on how violence in childhood affects a child's educational progress. ObjectiveTo examine the impact of violence-related ACEs on school success factors, including grade repetition, school absence, and school-home contact. Participants and settingsThis study uses secondary data analysis of a nationally representative survey, the National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH), to study a sample of non-institutionalized children aged 6–17 in the US (n = 35,122). MethodsWe employed binary logistic regression and multinomial logistic regression using 95% confidence intervals to analyze the effect of violence in childhood on three school success factors, controlling for socio-demographic and health status characteristics. ResultsWe found that violence in childhood increases the likelihood of grade repetition (OR = 1.47, 95% CI, 1.12–1.92), school-home contact (OR = 2.20, 95% CI, 1.86–2.60), and school absence greater than one week (OR=1.4, 95%CI,1.08-2.00; OR=1.86, 95%CI, 1.36–2.60), controlling for socio-demographic and health status characteristics. ConclusionsViolence in childhood has a statistically significant negative impact on each of the school success factors included in this study.