A Step-by-Step Guide to Chronic Absenteeism Solutions and Improving Student Attendance
What Exactly Is Chronic Absenteeism?
Students who miss at least 15 days of school in a year are considered chronically absent. Chronic absenteeism can be confused with truancy, but behavior-related. On the other hand, chronic absence is a term based on the number of days missed overall. This includes both excused and unexcused absences. Apart from health issues, other factors leading to chronic absenteeism can include family circumstances or a lack of family engagement with a school.
Absenteeism has increased since COVID-19 began, and test scores have also fallen. Evidence shows that improving school engagement is the main factor that impacts academic success, the economy, and society as a whole.
A White House blog on chronic absenteeism calls for all hands on deck to solve this problem. Their report states that “the evidence is clear that students and society benefit from attending well-resourced schools with effective teachers, [but] these benefits can only materialize if students are present and engaged.”
4 Common Factors that Contribute to Chronic Absenteeism
Research shows that challenges related to resources, attitudes, and knowledge Here are the four main categories of reasons why students miss school.
- Student Attendance Barriers
Struggling with academics or transportation can be discouraging and impact student attendance. The same is true for students who have unmet needs when it comes to housing, health, food, or clothing. Home life also comes into play when you consider predictability, neighborhood violence, or lack of a quiet place to study.
- Aversion to School
Students who struggle in class, face social conflicts, view their school culture negatively, or feel unsafe are less likely to attend their classes. Their aversion might even be supported by family members who don’t feel that they have access to solutions for these challenges.
- Disengagement from Education
A student is more likely to be absent if they feel bored or lack adult support. At times, uneven or biased school discipline can add to absenteeism. Additionally, students may disengage with schooling if their lessons feel culturally isolating or if they need to make income to support their families by working during school hours.
- Misconceptions about Attendance
Students and their families may not understand the importance of attendance. For example, they may believe that unexcused absences are the only problematic type of absence, or that missing a few days a month won’t set them back in terms of learning. If a student is suspended, families and children may not realize that this counts toward absence or learning loss. However, in all situations, these factors matter.
Why Family Engagement in Education Matters
Research shows that good relationships between schools and families help students attend school regularly. This requires planning and resource investments to encourage students to return and stay interested in learning.
4 Ways to Increase Family Engagement and Decrease Chronic Absenteeism
Below are four steps schools and districts can take to establish a plan for communication and family engagement.
Step 1: Collect Current Contact Information
Inaccurate or missing parent contact information is one of the largest barriers to engaging students and families. Current contact information is essential for your parent engagement strategies.
- Optimize your registration processes using online enrollment to gather multiple ways to contact families. With the right modern online enrollment solution, families can update key contact information year-round, ensuring the information in your will always be up to date.
- Early in the school year, work with your team to create a list of students and families with whom you have not spoken. After the list has been compiled, ask your team to review it for accuracy.
- Perform student attendance data analysis to identify students at risk of missing classes and their families. Then, make a plan to check in regularly to keep contact information updated.
- For hard-to-reach or “missing” students, gather information from your staff. Administrators, counselors, community involvement specialists, nurses, teachers, coaches, security monitors, and media specialists all have different interactions with students and may have a more recent phone number or email address.
- For families that are more difficult to track down, enlist the help of a PTA or other parent groups.
Step 2: Build and Foster Relationships with Students and Families Starting on the First Day of School
Family engagement reduces chronic absenteeism. Use the contact information for your students and families regularly.
- Send surveys throughout the school year to gather feedback, input, and other valuable data. When planning for back-to-school, use an online survey and data collection tool to ask students and families how they feel about the upcoming year, whether they need additional help, and what specific areas they may need help in. You can also use an integrated online survey and data collection tool to update contact information.
- Send a monthly newsletter to tell families about school activities and events, volunteer opportunities, and more. Consistently share your engagement goals for the year and emphasize the importance of updated contact information. Let families know you’re there to help.
- Identify students at risk for absenteeism and reach out in the first week of school. A quick check-in can support student and family well-being. Simply asking, ‘How are you?’ or ‘How is your family?’ makes a big difference.
- Communicate with students and families in their home language to build trust and engagement. A quality online communication solution can instantly translate two-way messages and emails into multiple languages.
Step 3: Use Technology Tools
Communication is key to overcoming chronic absenteeism. However, educators and administrators shouldn’t have to spend time tracking down absent students or ways to reach their families.
- as early warning systems for attendance. Although understanding attendance data from the last year might be tricky, it’s worth taking the time to review what is available. Use this information to set up tiers of student attendance intervention. See how did it.
- Use tools like PowerSchool Community Engagement to automate notifications based on tiers. Attendance tracking software can help you set up frequent notifications about attendance. This helps engage families and set clear expectations.
- Help teachers make connections and build relationships with families at the start of the school year. Communication tools can lift the heavy burden of outreach to create a partnership between school and home.
Step 4: Provide Professional Learning and Training
As you establish plans for initial outreach and ongoing communications, make sure you’re providing training and support to staff, especially if you’re leveraging communications tools. Consider the following topics:
- Positive messaging: Short and encouraging fact-based messages are impactful and proven to reduce absenteeism by up to 40%. Keep Gottman’s Five-to-One Rule in mind. It states that a negative interaction between people can be repaired with five positive messages.
- Family engagement planning: Work with teachers and staff to create actionable plans to reduce chronic absenteeism. These may include developing messaging templates, identifying at-risk students, planning automated notifications, and leveraging data to take preemptive or timely actions.
PowerSchool Solutions for Student Attendance Intervention
Solving chronic absenteeism involves a combination of interventions, support, and communication. That’s why PowerSchool is dedicated to providing tools to address this problem in the United States. Our solutions help improve attendance and encourage families to get involved and support students.
