Improving attendance and reducing chronic absence is not rocket science, but it does take commitment, collaboration and tailored approaches to the particular challenges and strengths of each school community. Across the nation, schools, communities and advocates have successfully taken steps to ensure children are attending school more regularly with:
Systemic Reform:
- Baltimore shut down its most troubled middle schools and created kindergarten-to-eighth grade schools as well as sixth-to-12th grade campuses that can serve older students.
Tailored Programmatic Responses:
- Providence, R.I., teachers found that parents working the overnight shift were falling asleep before bringing their children in. The school opened an early care and breakfast program so parents could drop off children before going to sleep.
Personalized Outreach:
- A Minneapolis, Minn. program (Check and Connect) uses school absences and tardies as signals that a child or a family needs support. Students are assigned to monitors or mentors, who work with the students, parents and teachers to support participation and engagement in school.
- New York City launched the Every Student Every Day campaign which targets 50 public schools with above-average levels of absenteeism, puts a high premium on using data to identify early warning signals, creates new models to connect schools to local resources and services, and provides mentors for students who were chronically absent last year or missing too many days this year.
In communities where chronic absence is widespread, reducing chronic absence may require a comprehensive solution involving systemic reforms, programmatic responses and personalized outreach. Examples of what has worked on the ground appear in this section. For examples of systemic reform at the state or federal level, see the policy section. If you have an effective solution that has led to a decline in chronic absence, contact us here.