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Editor's Notes

• #3: Unpacking attendance terms is critical because the word attendance encompasses multiple measures – each of which mean something different. If we aren’t clear about which attendance measure we are using, we can easily get confused and think we are talking about the same thing when we are not. Here are three of the most common measures. The first is ADA– which refers to the % of students who show up to school every day. It is often used for funding because it helps us know for example –how many desks do I need in my school in order to accommodate the typical number of students who show up every day. The second term is truancy – which typically refers only to unexcused absences. But, keep in mind truancy is defined differently across states In Maryland for example it is missing 20% of the school year due to unexcused absences. In California, it is a child who misses any 3 days without a valid excuse or is late to class by 30 minutes 3 times. In California, this low truancy figure triggers a note home so that parents know their child has been missing school. In many state, truancy is missing 10 days without an excuse. Regardless of the definition, truancy is typically used to begin identifying when a student may be breaking state compulsory education laws and to trigger the beginning of legal intervention. Chronic absence is a new term that Attendance Work has been promoting. It is based upon research. And, shows when has a child missed so much school that they are academically at risk.
• #8: Likewise, it is important to recognize the limitation of monitoring average daily attendance. Let’s say for example, you have a school with 200 students. If 190 show up to school – that is 95% attendance. But the 10 students who missed school that day are not the same 10 kids throughout the year. 95% attendance could be masking the fact that there are 60 students -- each of whom is missing about a month of school. . It all depends whether absences are due to most students missing a few days or excessive absences among a small but still significant minority of students. This slide shows variations in chronic absence across elementary schools in Oakland – all of whom had 95 – 95.5% Average Daily Attendance .
• #9: Here is a comparison of chronic absence and truancy – kids who missed 10 days without an excuse by near the end of a school year in San Franiisco. Take a look at kindergarten. chronic absence identified twice as many students than if they only looked at the truancy data.
• #10: Another reason chronic absence is overlooked is children don’t always miss too much school because of consecutive days of absence. Rather they miss – for example– one day every two weeks – which might be harder to track especially given the large size of classes these days. But these sporadic absences can still add up to too much time of lost instruction. In New York, they were surprised to see chronic absence had been masked by the 407 process which had been created to address concerns about child abuse when a child– Nixmary Brown had been found dead in the basement. At the time, everyone asked didn’t anyone at school notice. The 407 alert is important– but it is not the same as identifying students at academic risk because they’ve missed too much school.
• #12: Its profound impact on early learning is why chronic absence is considered one of the 3 key pillars of the comprehensive approach to reading at 3rd grade espoused by the Campaign for Grade Level Reading -- along with reducing the gap in school readiness and reducing summer learning loss. This strategy offers ways for communities to partner with schools to move the needle on 3rd grade reading – even while longer term efforts to improve the quality instruction of classroom instruction take place. Note– this is often where I will do the reading gap exercise in Bringing Attendance Home.
• #13: So, children who enter preschool with lower prior knowledge are more likely to be absent more, and the more they are absent, the lower their scores are. You can see this by the steeper slope of the blue curve at the bottom. The kids who need it the most too often get the least….
• #14: *** This is a group that schools than focus on intervening with. We know that these are more disadvantaged students, but here is a specific indicator – whether they are chronically absent (particularly once they move from prek into K) that schools that use to focus their outreach efforts. See the stair step pattern. Every year of absence correlates with lower achievement. By the end of 2nd grade.. The kids with persistent chronic absence are in need of serious reading intervention.
• #15: This research conducted on a cohort of 640 students in San Mateo and Santa Clara offers evidence that chronic early absence can profoundly affect early school success. The bar on the far right shows only 17% of students chronically absent in both kindergarten and 1st read proficiently at the end of 3rd grade as compared to 64% of students who missed 5% or less of school in both K and 1.
• #16: In any case, what we know is that that when children are young – it is children in poverty, who don’t have the resources to make up for time lost on task, who are affected most profoundly. In addition, children in poverty are more likely to face the kind of barriers– poor transportation, unstable housing or homelessness, lack of access to health care, etc. that cause children to be chronically absent for more than 1 year. This data suggests that we are losing some children as early as kindergarten. And, if they missed so much school that they aren’t reading by the end of 3rd grade, then even though attendance improves– they still fall behind or can’t catch up because they can’t read to learn. These children are likely to be the hardest to reach and help.
• #17: This shows why we need to start tracking chronic absence as early as possible. WE fo und that being chronically absent in 1st grade was associated with 5.8 – nearly six times higher chronic absence in 6th grade. Lower test scores and higher suspensions. If a child was chronically absent any three years– then they had 18 times higher levels of chronic absence!! There are other kids who fall off track in middle or high school– something happens even though they did OK in elementary school that results in their not showing up regularly. But the kids who are most expensive to bring back – we possibly lost in K and 1st – and because we were looking at truancy- -we didn’t notice that they or their families needed our help. We missed the opportunity to interrupt chronic absence before– they are so far behind and already feeling that school is not a place where they can succeed. Do you know what the single highest predictor of chronic absence is? It isn’t race, it isn’t income – it is prior year chronic absence. I am not saying that going to school will ensure that you will do well. It is only half the battle. But I am saying not showig up is a sure fire indicator of risk.
• #18: This is data from Utah– by middle school – chronic absence is sure fire indicator of drop out across students of all backgrounds. They found just one year of chronic absence – anytime between 8th and 1st grade -was associated with 3 times higher levels of drop out . Two years– and over half dropped out.
• #20: -How much better? Dark blue= % of students that graduate within 4 years, green enroll in college within 12 months, red persist from year 1 to year 2 of college -Major things that jump out: hitting that 80% mark is huge (keep in mind, that’s 2 months/year)- doubles your chances of graduating -hitting that 90% is huge, too: go from 70 to almost 90%
• #21: The good news is that chronic absence is a solvable problem. But knowing what will do the trick– requires understanding what leads to a student not coming to school. There are three major kind of reasons that students don’t go to school. It starts not with not making assumptions but taking the time to find out why a student or students are missing school . And, we have found it helpful to think about the possibilities in these big buckets. (Then go through some of the issues) Remind people that aversion isn’t always a big issue.. Among young children, aversion may be a matter of separation anxiety– the nervousness that a young child feels if he or she is going to be cared – for the first time- -by someone who isn’t a family member. What by the way– do you think kids say when they are nervous or anxious about going to school? Mommy, I have a stomach ache… So then sometimes you make think this is a barrier related to health– when the issue is really aversion. By the same token- it is important to keep in mind aversion can reflect much more serious systemic challenges such as poor school discipline policies that are pushing students out of school. Do you realize some places still, for example, suspend students for being truant? Data combined with the insights of student and families can help you understand what are the causes of absences. If chronic absence is concentrated in a neighborhood - -see if there are safety or transportation issue. Or find out if chronic absence is correlated with high levels of asthma and families not feeling secure about the ability of school to deal with an asthmatic attack. If chronic absence is concentrated in a classroom– it could be a matter of poor and boring instruction. Or, perhaps a teacher struggling with a bullying issue and in need of support.
• #22: We think of going to school as reflecting whether families feel a sense of Hope in a better future, Faith that going to this school or being with this teacher will get you to a better future and capacity – the resources, knowledge to ensure your child gets to school every day. If absenteeism is a big problem, it is important to understand where this might be breaking down. Is the problem a lack of Hope? For example, if a child lives in a violent community and they had a family member killed– hope could be a real challenge. In that case, then you need to find those inspiring examples– those community members that made it out of the violence who can help give the child and family hope that they too could have a better future. On the other hand, we also need to be careful that our interaction with families don’t cause families to lose hope or faith. Say for example, you have a family that lives in the poor end of town– but they believe so much in their child’s future that they are sending them to the better school across town… but public transportation keeps failing them. They are often late or don’t get there. If someone confront the family about the situation with a statement like how come you don’t care enough about school to get your child here on time? It will erode their faith that the school cares about their child and will help them attain a better future.
• #23: At same time, we know schools and communities can understand why kids aren’t in school and turn attendance around when they implement these five strategies with fidelity. How schools carry them out can be tailored to their own realities and strengths. Then – I go through and offer examples of what each one of these might look like. I also clarify that recognizing good and improved attendance isn’t just providing perfect attendance awards for a semester or year– which doesn’t help to motivate improvement among the students with the most problematic attendance.
• #24: Improving attendance requires a 3 tiered approach. The challenge is that too many schools and communities are failing to invest in the first two tiers of universal and preventative. The strategies we just outlined– help to ensure an investment in the bottom two tiers – recognizing good and improved attendance as well as parent and student engagement are part of universal approaches. Personalized early outreach ensures intervention happens early. Investing in these bottom tiers is both more effective and less costly. And, if schools don’t, then the top of the pyramid becomes easily becomes overwhelmed.
• #25: Looking at data district wide is essential because it shows where we need to intervene because levels are extremely high. Consider the 9 elementary, 4 middle schools and 9 high schools with over 20% of their students who are chronically absent!! Something needs to happen differently in the schools.
• #26: At same time, we know schools and communities can understand why kids aren’t in school and turn attendance around when they implement these five strategies with fidelity. How schools carry them out can be tailored to their own realities and strengths. Then – I go through and offer examples of what each one of these might look like. I also clarify that recognizing good and improved attendance isn’t just providing perfect attendance awards for a semester or year– which doesn’t help to motivate improvement among the students with the most problematic attendance.
• #27: If your district could use help with this work or would like to be kept informed of the latest tools and strategies, please encourage your superintendent to sign on to our Call to Action. If they do, they and their designated contacts, will automatically receive emails with resources and we create materials aimed at helping district administrators. We also would like Superintendents to sign on – because it helps us make the case to state and federal officials that addressing chronic absence is an issue that has support and traction on the ground. It helps us advocate that they should help to provide needed capacity building and technical assistance resources.
• #37: Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this overview. We encourage you to refer to our web-site for additional resource or feel free to contact any member of the Attendance Works team. We appreciate your interest and commitment to improving student attendance so very child has the opportunity to learn, succeed and thrive.