For Principals: Leading Attendance Through Engagement
Step 1: Create or strengthen a school team to improve attendance
Reducing chronic absence requires a team to craft and implement a school-wide approach. This team provides the insights, resources and staff capacity needed to design an effective strategy that supports all students. One or two people can’t do it all. A team needs your strong endorsement.
Identify your school team that addresses attendance
Select an administrative leader and team members. Every school needs an administrator to lead the team dedicated to monitoring attendance and implementing proactive strategies. If you are just starting this process, you can begin with a small group and invite others to join over time. Your school may need to form a new team, or it can build attendance responsibilities into an existing team, such as one that focuses on academics and behavior. School teams are successful when they bring together school-based staff, operate across departments (e.g., instruction, behavioral health, special education, and nursing) and reflect student demographics.
For more, see the Attendance Works handout How to Organize an Effective School Team to Improve Attendance.
Build the capacity of your team
Take a multi-tiered approach
Effective attendance teams use a multi-tiered approach to guide their work. Teams analyze why groups of students attend or miss school, map existing interventions and develop a data-driven, tiered strategy to reducing chronic absence. The goal is to prioritize prevention and early intervention for all students, particularly for those who miss between 10% and 20% of school days. This work should not be approached as case management. Instead, teams should examine patterns and trends by grade level or student group. This requires assessing what supports for a multi-tiered approach are already in place, then determining how to fill gaps and tailor strategies to meet the needs of your students and families.
Use data to understand and address the challenge
Strong teams use actionable data — not assumptions — to guide decisions. Build capacity by training team members to:
- Understand chronic absence metrics and how they differ from average daily attendance
- Identify school-wide trends, patterns and disparities
- Recognize which grades, student groups or classrooms show higher or lower levels of absence
- Analyze attendance bands to identify strategies that address barriers
- Use qualitative data tools to learn from students and families about the factors that affect whether students show up to school
- Consider positive outreach, prevention and early supports rather than punitive responses
Attendance improves when teams understand why students are missing school. Build time into your meetings to explore:
- Strengths and resources already present in your school
- Barriers and challenges that keep students from attending regularly
- Strategies that address the root causes of absence
To learn more about using data and identifying root causes, go to the toolkit section “Use data to understand and address the challenge.”
Disruptions from the Covid-19 pandemic severed the connections that many families and students had with their schools. New research comparing prepandemic with postpandemic attendance data shows that relationships and a positive school climate matter more than ever. When students and families feel connected to school and trust in their teachers and peers, they are motivated to show up and are more willing to share when they are experiencing a barrier to being in school.
Bright spot
Robertsdale Elementary School, Baldwin County, Alabama
During the 2024-25 school year, Robertsdale reduced its chronic absence rate to 9.5% from a rate of 18.5% for the prior two school years. Robertsdale’s success reflects several key attributes of its work. With the strong support of principal Will Duncan, school counselor Shannon Rubio invited volunteers to join a professional learning community (PLC) that would meet monthly to develop and implement a plan for improving attendance. Nearly 15 members signed up, including the school counselors, site administrators, special education supervisor, nurses, teachers and social worker, as well as a mental health facilitator and a counseling supervisor for the county. During the first meeting at the end of October, Rubio shared the school data, research on why chronic absence matters, key concepts such as the difference between truancy and chronic absence and Alabama’s commitment to reducing chronic absence by participating in The 50% Challenge. As the PLC team discussed the four PLC questions designed to improve student learning and engagement, they identified interventions and strategies that they believed would be most effective for their students. Rubio intentionally ensured that everyone felt they had a voice and their input was valued. To learn more, read our bright spot blog article.
Resources
The Map of School Teams helps identify all school teams to avoid duplication of efforts.
The School Team Self-Assessment Tool helps find the strengths and opportunities in your school community to implement a school-wide attendance strategy. The self-assessment is built around the five key functions of a school team that effectively address attendance.
See also the Attendance Works handout How to Organize an Effective School Team to Improve Attendance.