Reducing Chronic Absence Through Student Support and Engagement, Starting in 9th Grade
Located in Arizona, Camelback High School serves roughly 2,100 ethnically diverse students in grades 9-12 in Phoenix Union High School District.
Working as a team, school leaders and staff successfully reduced the school’s chronic absence rate from a high of nearly 46% in the 2021-22 school year to 25% in 2023-24. While more current comparable chronic absence data aren’t available due to a change in how the metric is defined, every other school metric has improved: ninth grade on track, dual college credit attainment, FAFSA completion, graduation rate and scholarship money earned, said Principal James Arndt.
Arndt attributes this success to several key strategies including access to timely attendance data, teacher outreach to families and intentional support for incoming ninth grade students. The school was recently named a National Demonstration School for 9th Grade Success, and all students are scheduled into an advisory class that serves as their homebase.
Actionable attendance data to prompt timely and caring communication from teachers. Even though Arizona does not use attendance as an accountability measure for high schools, the Phoenix Union High School District Governing Board set its own goals for attendance. In response, the district set up a system to provide every teacher with a report that lists all students who have more than three absences in their classes. This system is significant because teachers are not being asked to log in to run reports, instead they receive an auto-generated email that provides that information . Using Parent Square, teachers then reach out to families to remind them about the value of attendance and invite families to share any concerns. In addition, once a student has five full-day absences, their advisory teacher also receives a notice. These advisors also reach out to families to find out whether support might be needed. The school provided teacher training for the system, as well as a script that teachers can adapt for communicating with parents and a list of resources teachers can offer families .
Freshman House focuses on a strong start to high school. Building on research that shows that being on track at the end of ninth grade is important for academic success, Camelback has grouped its incoming ninth graders into smaller “houses” that share the same math, science and English teacher. Freshmen “success teams,” include a counselor, house coordinator, administrator and those three content teachers. The team meets weekly and is aligned to provide wraparound support to students. Team members look at student responses to a “Care survey” next to student grades and attendance to assess student progress and the degree to which students feel connected to and engaged in school. This information helps them to determine whether additional support or outreach might be warranted.
In addition, Camelback offers incoming ninth graders the opportunity to attend “Step up to High School,” an 11 day, 6 hours a day summer bridge program. The program is not focused on academics, but rather on how to navigate high school. According to Principal Arndt, “it’s about transcripts, it’s about picking electives, it’s about executive functioning and organization.” Principal Arndt calls this intentional focus on ninth grade success a “strong buffer” that “creates a sense of confidence and belonging” that carries students through their high school career.
Trusting relationships with adults allow students to take up support offered. Starting high school in smaller groups allows students to develop deeper relationships with peers and adults. According to Arndt, teachers who serve as ninth grade advisory teachers continue to work with incoming ninth graders “because we believe there is a skill set in working with ninth graders and we’ve picked those advisors on purpose. We want them to be the ones to welcome every new set of ninth graders.”
As students transition into 10th grade, they are assigned to an advisory teacher and counselor who will follow them to graduation. If students fall behind, counselors and teachers have a number of options to recover credits, including an online option and before- and after-school classes. According to Arndt, they lean into student-adult relationships that help students “believe in us” so they “actually take advantage of those opportunities.”
Wide variety of offerings engage students academically. All ninth-grade students take a class called “Freshman Connections” that provides opportunities to explore academic and career interests. The summative project for that class is an Education Career and Academic Plan that all high school students in Arizona must complete. Principal Arndt said he thinks it’s a good exercise for students to complete but acknowledged that the process may not click for some students until later in their school career.
The school hosts over 65 clubs and sports opportunities in addition to Career and Technical Education, World Language, and Fine Art classes accessible to all students. A partnership with the Arizona Community Foundation helps fund $20,000-$30,000 of scholarships for dual credit. Camelback students earn college credit through dual-enrollment classes. And although Principal Arndt acknowledged the desire to strengthen the schools’ CTE program, the school is planning to offer a program in Cybersecurity and Introduction to Artificial Intelligence soon. It will also continue to build on the success of the school’s DECA program that builds skills of emerging leaders and entrepreneurs. The school’s culinary program, which results in a food handlers card, is always fully enrolled, Arndt said.