3 Proactive Steps to Start the Year Off Right With Student Attendance and Reduce Chronic Absenteeism

Starting Off On the Right Foot

It's August. The school year just started and while school teams are excited for a new year with new opportunities, with recent updates in accountability measures in many states, ensuring that their school is on track to meet all these measures is heavy on school administrators' minds. In particular, if you found this blog, attendance is at the forefront of your brain right now. This article delves into three, proactive, beginning of the year steps that teams can take to start off on the right front with attendance initiatives: setting up an attendance task force, looking at attendance data, and centering attendance work around  Multi-Tiered Systems of Support.

Step 1: Set Up an Attendance Task Force

Much like any initiative within a school, attendance needs a champion or a team of people who are accountable for this work and who keep this work on the forefront of their minds. The first beginning of year action that schools can take in order to kick the year off right with attendance is to establish an attendance task force. This team may have one of a variety of different names: Attendance Team, MTSS Team, Leadership Team, Cross-Disciplinary Team, however, regardless of what it's called, this group of people is responsible for looking at historical attendance data, meeting on a regular basis to discuss student needs, and collaborating across team members to determine interventions and strategies. Below are common questions that teams ask when first establishing their attendance teams, if this is not currently a deeply embedded structure.

Who?

The members of this team may differ school to school however, in general, common members of this team are administrators, counselors, social worker, special education team member, English Language Learner teacher, among others. The key to success with this team is to have it be large enough that all voices are heard and considered and lean enough to be able to accomplish the necessary work quickly.

What? 

This team is tasked with analyzing data, identifying individual students in need of support, and matching interventions with individual student needs. This team also identifies school wide and individual barriers and determines strategies for proactively and retroactiely supporting attendance trends across the school.

When?

This team meets at a regular cadence. Some schools, especially at the beginning of the year may convene this team on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. For other schools with less dire chronic absenteeism concerns, a monthly cadence is more suitable to their needs.

Step 2: Look at the Data

Looking at historical attendance data allows for an attendance task force to accomplish a few crucial things: 

• Identify students or families of students who have been chronically absent in the past

• Identify trends in attendance across the school year to determine when positive attendance initiatives might be most useful.

• Begin to categorize students based on types of absences and reasons for absences (ie illness, disengagement, unexcused absences, etc)

• Formulate a plan for matching interventions to student need.

In addition to historical attendance data, historical academic data may also be useful to look at as attendance and academic success are often related. As well, this is a great time of the year to gather information from students, staff, and families either formally or informally about beliefs and opinions about school attendance. In my own research, we found it useful to hear from students and families through surveys and interviews about why some students chose to attend and others did not. Through this data we were able to identify trends and match solutions to these challenges.

Step 3: Center the Attendance Task Force Work in MTSS

A term that historically was known as RTI or Response to Intervention, MTSS or Multi Tiered Systems of Support has taken over as the more common term to encompass the process of providing tiered support for students based on needs. As well, traditionally RTI focused on academics and behavior, whereas MTSS encompasses also health and wellness needs as well. Recent research points to attendance as a behavior so the used of MTSS for providing tiered support makes sense.

What does tiered support through MTSS look like?

• Tier 1 (ALL) - These are the generally proactive supports that are good for and provided to all students, for example, attendance initiatives, engaging learning strategies, welcoming language and environment, attendance messaging, among others.

• Tier 2 (Some)- These are the practices that are targeted and involve supporting a smaller group of students needing more than Tier 1 support. Some common practices in this tier include mentors, attendance letters, parent meetings, and student conferences.

• Tier 3 (Few) - Tier 3 practices are more time intensive and intended for a smaller group of students who are not responding to Tier 1 and Tier 2 supports. These supports often involve including counselors and other mental health providers as well as collaborating with families to determine solutions and remove barriers to attendance.

The rationale behind using a multi-tiered system of support is that schools simply do not have the resources or time to provide all students the same support. As well, not all students need the same supports. In addition, the goal is to implement strong Tier 1, proactive strategies to reduce the number of students needing Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports.

There is still time in the year to make a difference and these three steps will help set schools up for success with attendance.

Dana Chen

Assistant Principal

Educator Researcher