Below are effective strategies to boost attendance among some student subgroups in Arizona most impacted by chronic absence.

Native American Students 

According to Native American educators and school district partners with experience improving chronic absence for Native student populations, there are some key guiding principles and strategies that can increase attendance:

• Work to intentionally and authentically build bridges to families and students.
  • Get to know your local tribal community and become respectfully engaged.
  • Learn about Native American priorities and partner with local tribal leaders to learn, listen, and engage around providing better connections to tribal culture, and invite feedback and build partnership.
  • Look for opportunities to attend events that are important to students and families, such as sports games or cultural events.
  • Include Native American representation in attendance teams and workgroups.
  • Ensure that families know who to contact if they are having difficulties getting to school or are confronting other barriers to attendance.
  • Be flexible with time, understanding when families can connect, and be mindful that digital communication may not be the best way to connect.
  • Use positive community outreach with ongoing feedback loops, taking an affirmative, rather than punitive, approach with caregivers and families that includes listening more than speaking and finding out what resources families really need and offering assistance.
  • Consider classifying tribal cultural events as excused absences.
  • Provide positive reinforcement and celebration around improved attendance. 

According to Native American educational expert Mona Halcomb, “Become a visible ally to families. Show up in the community. Consistent actions, not words, can go a long way to build trust.”

A Minnesota-based Native American attendance workgroup made up of Native members and agencies that have worked together to reduce chronic absence for more than nine years, suggests using an approach that supports individual students and lets students know “we all have their backs.” According to one leader, “Sometimes if a kid knows that somebody here is really worried about them or cares for them, sometimes that’s all it takes… Other times, it’s offering programs… We want to draw kids in, we want kids to feel good when they’re here.”

• Monitor your communication and tone, ensuring it is positive, welcoming, and relevant to Native students and families.
  • Translate greetings and communications into the home language of families as appropriate.
  • Recognize cultural differences in communication and consider partnering with a local tribal member or group to vet communications for their effectiveness and tap into what matters to the Native community in your messaging.

One district’s messaging with a focus of “attend to achieve” did not resonate with its Native community, but messaging that emphasized attending school as a way to be better able to help their community was well received.

• Focus on Native youth and family initiatives.
  • Consider bringing together Native youth during school and in summer learning and engagement activities that are relevant to their interests.
  • Provide trainings and events that are specifically relevant to Native families with young children and students in the early grades.

English Language Learners

The Parent Institute for Quality Education conducted a needs assessment in 2023 with nearly 700 PK-12 parents of English language learners to understand various aspects impacting learning and student absenteeism. Based on this data, several key points emerge that may be helpful to consider when trying to address barriers to attendance for ELL students.

• Approximately 60% of parents surveyed indicated that they wanted to know what they can do to support their child’s learning and would like more regular communication from their child’s teacher. Only 39% of parents surveyed felt that the school communicated effectively to them about their child’s academics, and 45% of parents feel welcomed by school staff to ask questions.
• Families expressed having increased challenges with areas of basic need, such as the rising cost of food and housing and not having access to medical care or technology. Older ELL students may be working to help their families deal with rising housing and food costs.
• Half of the families surveyed indicated they had health concerns. Experts share that it is important to be cognizant that many families of ELL students had family members who were essential workers disproportionately impacted by illness and death during the pandemic. A trauma-informed response addressing concerns and educating families on when to send their children to school may prove useful in reducing chronic absence. Families need clarity on when students should be in school if they are not feeling well.

English language learners can face challenges in building relationships at school that may impact their attendance. They can experience bullying, have difficulty making friends, and may not have a strong relationship with at least one caring adult due to a lack of teacher capacity, an inability to express needs in English, and a fear of failure that can accompany the process of learning a new language. ELL students may have extra responsibilities to translate for adult family members in certain situations, such as medical appointments, that may require them to miss school. And students and parents who are new to the United States may have additional difficulty navigating the school system and may have different norms or expectations for the importance of daily attendance.

According to a 2024 West Ed and Attendance Works panel, the following are effective strategies to increase attendance for multilingual learners:

• Communicate the expectation of good attendance and its connection to learning.
  • District-wide messaging on why good attendance matters in the home language of families is critical.
  • Early intervention when students are absent with caring, personal communication is also key. This may include calls home or texts from a teacher with a caring message and offer of assistance.
  • Celebrate improved attendance.

• Monitor communications to ensure the tone is positive, welcoming, and understandable to students and families.
  • Use a family advisory group or parent liaison to vet district/school-wide communications looking for ease of understanding and tone.
  • Be sure all staff understand the importance of creating a welcoming school campus experience for ELL families. Small things like smiling and welcoming at the building entrance make a difference.
  • Provide consistent and personal two-way communication from teachers to parents in their home language, using translation technology if necessary, to share information on what is happening at school and something positive about their child. There are free two-way messaging apps, such as Talking Points, that automatically translate text messages back and forth between English and 150 languages.
  • Provide parent cafes in the language of families.
  • Hire parent advocates and liaisons who can speak with families in their home languages about resources, answer questions families may have, and learn about difficulties families may be experiencing.

• Engage in intentional relationship building so that families experience a sense of belonging and connection.
  • Provide needed resources to families, such as access to food and health care services.
  • Create opportunities for out-of-school learning activities for students and parents.
  • Conduct virtual or in-person home visits, sharing that bilingualism is an asset and how the school will support their child’s English language learning.
  • Ask parents to contribute their ideas for events that matter to them and would bring them to school.
  • Evaluate your newcomer student process, and consider creating a newcomer support team to welcome students and families and provide services to ease their transition.
  • Tap into trusted community-based organizations that are already working with ELL families to build trust with families.

• Ensure that someone who understands ELL student needs is on the school attendance team.

Homeless Populations

Students experiencing homelessness face significant challenges with attendance. Tracking chronic absence can lead to identifying students who may be newly experiencing homelessness but have slipped under the radar.

• Federal protections exist to protect and guarantee immediate enrollment and educational stability for homeless students. Funding from this legislation can be used to help address chronic absence and remove barriers to attendance.
• Funding under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act can be used to provide 16 authorized uses including outreach, transportation, staffing, food services, and supplies (clothing, shoes, backpacks, school supplies, hygiene kits).  
• In addition, the American Rescue Plan Homeless Children and Youth Act can be used to provide outreach, awareness, transportation (rideshare, bicycles, car repair, school vehicle purchase), staffing and staff development, supplies, prepaid gas cards, prepaid store cards, limited motel stays, cell phones, hot spots, wireless plans, food assistance, stipends for mentors, counseling supports, and more.) It has more flexibility for usage than traditional Mc-Kinney-Vento allowances.

The Arizona Department of Education has a sample McKinney-Vento attendance procedure for working to address attendance and ensure that homeless students are not automatically dropped from enrollment after exceeding the 10-day threshold of unexcused absences. Steps outline how the LEA’s McKinney-Vento Homeless Liaison engages students and guardians to conduct research into the student/family situation, implement strategies to support the student’s return to school, and provide updates to the school site before dropping a student from enrollment.

Serving homeless students effectively also involves developing community partnerships that can provide necessary resources and support.

AZ Spotlight

Window Rock Unified School District

Window Rock Unified School District (WRUSD) is a large, rural district in the Navajo Nation in northern Arizona where 100% of students qualify for free and reduced lunch. From his 25 years working in districts serving economically-disadvantaged students, Superintendent Dr. Shannon Goodsell shared that “policy and incentives can have an impact when it comes to attendance, but if you really want to get kids to school, nothing matters more than having positive relationships at school.”

WRUSD has worked to reduce chronic absence by focusing on the importance of student-teacher relationships connected to engaging instructional strategies. Principal Supervisor Dan Horsley shared, “We’ve changed our teaching methods so that high school teachers are required to have classrooms where students are highly engaged and participate in relevant, challenging, cooperative learning using interactive methods such as Socratic seminars, philosophical chairs, pinwheel discussions.”

The district also prioritized asset-based family and community engagement, basing their relationship-building approach on a highly effective family engagement model used in Hawaii public schools called AFFECT. According to Horsley, “Post Covid, we’ve done a lot of listening to parents and building relationships. Our teachers go to football games and look for opportunities to engage with the community. We build assets in the community and recruit families to be part of our schools. We also create school events that matter to them.” Further, Goodsell shared that engaging with parents is part of the teacher evaluation process. Teachers are expected to connect with parents throughout the year and share positive aspects about the student.

Attendance, behavior, and achievement have all improved across the district. Elementary, intermediate, middle, and high schools have all demonstrated improvement within the AZ School Report Card system, with some schools achieving a B rating in 2022-23.