Strategies to Reduce Chronic Absence
Tips for Engaging Students, Families and Community Partners
As mentioned prior, building positive relationships with students, families, and community partners is essential to be able to reduce chronic absence.
Taking a partnership approach is key, as is using effective communication strategies with students and families. Successful efforts take an intentional and coordinated approach to inform and educate families on the connection between attendance and achievement. Help students and parents/caregivers understand that absences can add up quickly and contribute to significant lost learning time. Surveys indicate that parents want more information and regular communication on how their child is doing in school and would like to know about their attendance and achievement.
Messaging to Families
Schools share that many students are staying home due to anxiety. Creating messaging that helps parents understand how anxiety can be addressed with students coming to school has proven helpful for some districts.
Updating your school or district messaging on when to keep kids home and educating parents effectively on health and mental health information can help reduce chronic absence. In several school communities, the school nurse has been instrumental in troubleshooting some of these challenges. Think about how you might be able to engage the school nurse or other trusted health field partners to educate and address this issue with families in your community.
Keeping Messages Fresh
Several Arizona district leaders who have successfully reduced chronic absence shared the need to refresh messaging periodically around attendance. Messaging at the beginning of the year can focus on rebuilding the idea that if students are not in school, then they are not learning. During the pandemic, parents got the message that attending school was more flexible and that their child would be fine academically whether their child attended or not. Connect daily attendance and instruction to better ELA and math outcomes, for example. Campaigns should begin before the school year starts and be coupled with strategies to personally connect with students and families who are absent in the first twenty days of school.
In addition, successful messaging should address any current misconceptions that you are noticing around attendance in your community such as the need to keep students home at any sign of illness. Messaging can get stale and become irrelevant to parents. Refresh messaging during the academic year, sharing successes and connecting attendance in school to positive learning outcomes and student wellbeing throughout the year. Incorporate student, teacher, and parent voices into your messaging throughout the year about the positive aspects of attending school.
Having Effective Conversations
The ability to have effective conversations with students and families is a crucial component in efforts to reduce chronic absence. According to school leaders in Arizona who have made traction on chronic absence, learning how to do this well is key. It is essential to train staff and to establish norms and expectations for these very important personal interactions. It can be helpful to identify which individuals a student or parent/family may trust and engage that specific school professional (teacher, school nurse, parent liaison, etc.) to have that initial conversation around a student’s attendance issues and barriers to coming to school. According to research, most parents trust their child’s teacher more than anyone in the school community.
An effective conversation is supportive. It does not focus on blame or have a tone of judgment. It can look like the following:
- Learn about the student and family. Ask open-ended questions that show you are interested. Ask questions such as: What are your hopes and dreams for your child? What has been interesting or challenging about learning so far this year?
- Share positive things observed about the student.
- Inform about the student’s attendance. Share any patterns around missed days.
- Educate about the importance of being in school. Connect to hopes and dreams that either the student or the parent have expressed.
- Discuss what works and what are the challenges to get their student to school.
- Come up with a plan together that identifies strategies to address absences. List steps to achieve goals. Identify any opportunities to make up for lost learning time if possible.
- Identify a time to check in on progress.
RESOURCE
Attendance Works offers this downloadable Caring Conversations Worksheet.
All in Education
After listening to parents during the pandemic who wanted more transparency and communication on how their children were doing in school, Arizona nonprofit All in Education partnered with school districts and launched their Parent Educator Academy (PEA). Over the course of a nine-week virtual session, parents learn how the education system works and ways they can be engaged. Parents gain confidence supporting their child’s education, asking questions, understanding their child’s proficiency levels, and see how chronic absence negatively impacts achievement. More than 560 alumni have graduated from PEA, which has a 90% retention and graduation rate.
Senior Director of Leadership Livier Delgadillo shared, “When parents complete the academy, they are ready for action and want to be active participants in their child’s education. They see themselves as champions and want to partner with their child’s school to create positive change.”
PEA is the beginning of All in Education’s intentional leadership development pipeline. After graduating, some parents become part of the workforce in their school districts, others become facilitators for future PEA cohorts, and more go on to participate in All in Ed’s Adelante Fellowship. Through the work, parents see that their lived experiences and voices matter, increase efficacy, and recognize the power of their own leadership and that they are integral to making their community schools better.
All in Education has worked to provide professional development and support for districts who want to learn how to authentically build relationships with parents and the community through a shared accountability and student-outcome focused approach. Delgadillo continued, “To reduce chronic absence, districts need to understand the power of authentic family engagement. Once parents are engaged, they are fully committed. You need to invest in them, hear them, and invite them to the table. They will come up with solutions that districts need.”
In the Roosevelt School District, PEA alumni parents are at that table working with district leadership through parent-led action teams on the issue of reducing chronic absenteeism. Parent action teams asked for specific data on chronic absence. As a result of diving into the data, the district found that half of all absences did not have reasons why students were absent recorded in the data set. Without this information, working to solve the problem effectively is difficult. As a result, the district decided to invest in their own data analysis team, and school leaders have started to implement the Attendance Works tiered approach to reduce chronic absenteeism. Parent action teams and district leaders are exploring the different ways that parents can be involved in these tiered interventions.
Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy Jeff Zetino shared, “Parents took the challenge of wanting to make their community schools better. They wanted to be the genesis of change in tandem with the governing board and superintendent. Parents are seated at the table along with district leadership as they work together to improve student outcomes. It’s been inspiring to see how the school board and the superintendent work so well with our parents.”
During the latest round of school letter grades, Roosevelt had no failing schools, with a school increasing to an A grade. And while many districts across the state have declining enrollment, Roosevelt has gained more than 600 students. All in Education demonstrates what is possible when districts shift their paradigm of family engagement to authentic partnership—when families’ voices are seen, heard, and honored in their children’s education, students and schools can thrive.
Working Effectively With Key Subgroups
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.
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.
Community Partners
Reducing chronic absence is a complex challenge, and districts and schools cannot be successful working in isolation. In addition to working with families, community partnerships are another important component. Community partnerships are integral to providing resources to break down barriers students may be facing in getting to school. In addition, engaging partners in your efforts ensures shared accountability for improving attendance because it becomes a whole-community responsibility. Partners in the community can help increase the capacity to serve different groups of students who are chronically absent in your school or district.
Examples of community partners you may seek to engage include: child welfare agencies, local businesses, nonprofit organizations, afterschool programs, and more.
Matching Partners to Interventions
Having determined the causes or barriers to attending school, choose relevant partners that can help to alleviate specific challenges facing students and families.
Local nonprofit organizations can plan and provide events, activities, and classes that are meaningful to parents which is a way to actively engage families and help them feel comfortable in the school community. In addition, there may be free after-school activities, youth enrichment programs, and other special learning programs that local community-based organizations can provide for students.
Partnerships can help give families access to a host of services that can address housing, health, food, transportation, and other basic resource issues that impact attendance. Having relationships and connections to local health and mental health providers is key. Families can be referred to local pediatricians, health clinics, and any community health initiatives and services that are relevant to their needs. Being able to troubleshoot barriers related to family and work responsibilities might mean partnering with job service organizations or agencies that can provide scholarships for free childcare.
Explore your gaps in resources and try thinking out of the box to help find partners that could assist with meeting that particular need. It is important to develop your own local resource network of partners and services in your area. Create your own school and district/network resource list that is relevant and up-to-date to help with everything from providing educational services and programs for children, families, and youth to nonprofit organizations and agencies providing access to basic necessities such as food, clothing, healthcare, and housing that can help address barriers to attendance in your community.
Some Arizona school districts and pre-kindergarten programs have created “closed-loop” referral systems with community partners to reduce the time it takes for families to get assistance. These partnerships can be formally recognized via MOU’s or written agreements stating the nature of the relationship, process for referral, and services provided.
Local businesses can be enlisted to serve in a variety of ways. For example, laundromats or appliance providers can help provide resources so that parents or older students can have access to washers and dryers installed at school or in their community to ensure clean clothes for school are available. Or, a local restaurant can provide gift cards or celebration events to reward students and families for improved attendance.
Align Partners and Interventions to Reasons for Absences
Messaging the Importance of Attendance
Community partnerships can help reinforce community-wide messaging to students and families. Some approaches to engage community partners in spreading the word include:
- Enlisting faith-based and civic organizations in the community to message the importance of attending school.
- Asking health providers and family physicians in the school community to remind families of the importance of attendance school.
- Having relevant, local influencers remind kids to get to school via recording them for robocall or video text message.
- Ask community organizations to emphasize the importance of attendance in their work and programs with students and families, provide sample messaging so it is consistent with the school or district’s message.
Which community partners would be most effective in helping you address specific barriers for students at your school or district? What types of community partners have you not tried yet? What capacity do you need to engage more partners?
Maricopa County Head Start
At Maricopa County Head Start, data is the key that opens doors to understanding families’ situations and connecting them to resources that can mitigate barriers to attendance. Weekly and monthly data cycles are run to identify children with multiple absences. If a child has missed two consecutive days, staff make direct, personal contact with families through phone calls and home visits.
Former Head Start Director Eve Del Real shared, “By following the data and using a personal case-by-case approach, we get to know what our families are going through. We’ve discovered instances when families were experiencing a level of displacement that we were unaware of—discovering how a family was living in their car, exhausted from having to stay in different parks each night or another parent who would spend a majority of her day moving from bus to bus with her baby to be inside with air conditioning. We were able to help get families access to housing and hotel vouchers through a partnership network we developed with human service department agencies.”
Issues with transportation and transportation repair are costly barriers for families. Listening to families uncovered the shifts in motivational levels around the priority of daily attendance, which can be attributed to a variety of reasons such as mental health challenges and multiple stresses that families are experiencing.
Maricopa County Head Start takes a multi-disciplinary approach that breaks down barriers and explores as many connections with local human service department and community action agencies as possible to help families expand their network of resources and gain access to everything from food and nutrition, to housing assistance, as well as many other supports. Del Real shared, “Often these agencies are looking for partners. We’ve created MOUs and interagency agreements that help us reduce or mitigate barriers for families. We need flexible approaches that support and honor families in a positive way. We cannot vilify families because of their circumstances. We’ve changed the way we message, shifting the narrative to celebrating the positive outcomes when families can establish the healthy routine of daily attendance in the early years. We celebrate parents as their child’s first and most important teacher and if we could continue that message from PreK to K- 12 it would be empowering for a family with multiple generational benefits.”
RESOURCES
IES REL Toolkit of Resources for Engaging Families and the Community as Partners
Student Engagement and Attendance Center Planning Tool for Family Engagement
Embracing a New Normal: Toward a More Liberatory Approach to Family Engagement report from the Carnegie Foundation
Four Strategies to Increase Student Attendance Through Personalized Family Messaging
Attendance Works resources for communication with families: