California data tools

A special note: California users may also find the national DATT and SATT tools helpful for offering a more nuanced breakdown of attendance categories including extreme chronic absence, which is defined as missing 50% or more of days enrolled. Click here to learn more.

Attendance Works offers free data tools designed specifically for California schools and school districts to track chronic absence. The tools, self-calculating Excel spreadsheets, include California’s unique transitional kindergarten as a grade in school and reflect the state’s definition of truancy.

Used in combination or as separate modules, the California versions of the district and school chronic absence tracking tools (CalDATT and CalSATT) make tracking chronic absence a snap. In addition, the California Truancy Supplement offers insights into the relationship between chronic absence, suspension and truancy as defined by California law.

chronically absent students

The tools include modules for assessing chronic absence in elementary, middle and high school grades, as well a tool for combining chronic absence reports for all grade levels. Each module can accommodate up to 65,000 students.

While the CalDATT and CalSATT are compatible with any student information system, Aeries has specifically modified its system to make calculating chronic absence even easier. Aeries users can define which time period they wish to analyze for which schools and download a pre-formatted data set that can be pasted into the CalDATT or CalSATT to automatically generate chronic absence reports. This is offered free of additional charge thanks to the cooperation of the California Attorney General’s Office and Eagle Software, the creator of Aeries. Attendance Works hopes that this will be the first of many such cooperative and beneficial arrangements with SIS providers. If you are interested in having Attendance Works speak with your SIS provider, contact us at help@attendanceworks.org.

For Aeries Users
Why do California Districts and Communities Need These Tools?

  • The district- and school-level tools provide a quick snapshot of chronic absence in your district and schools.

  • The tools provide baseline chronic absence levels – a key accountability measure for Local Control Accountability Plans.

  • The tools save you and your staff time, money and aggravation.

  • They provide insight into the impact of suspensions on attendance.

  • They help districts ensure that families of chronically absent students receive written notices of truancy or excessive absences.

  • They generate lists of individual students who have attendance problems for monitoring and intervention.

  • They detect patterns of chronic absence in the following categories:

    • By Grade (for Most Recent School Year)
    • By Grade Over Time (for 3 years)
    • By School (CalDATTs only)
    • By Race/Ethnicity
    • By Gender
    • By Race/Ethnicity and Gender
    • By Special Needs status
    • By English Learner status
    • By Free and Reduced Price Lunch Status
    • By Zip Code

In addition, the California Truancy Supplements:

  • Allow users to explore the relationships between chronic absence and truancy

  • Examine what proportion of absences are excused, unexcused or due to suspensions

  • Look at which students – chronically absent or not – receive notices of truancy or excessive excused absence letters.

The CalDATT and CalSATT are available free of charge from Attendance Works.

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Updated:  July 2022