A District Transitions Planning Guide

Actionable Data

This section explains actionable data, shares an inspiring actionable data story (bright spot) and offers selected resources to support your efforts.

What is Actionable Data? It means collecting and reporting quantitative attendance and chronic absence data and qualitative analysis that can show reasons that students miss school that are accurate, accessible, timely, comprehensive and understandable. These data will inform the development of prevention and intervention strategies and allocation of resources that support student attendance.

During the 2020-2021 school year, actionable data requires monitoring multiple metrics including chronic absence, contact, connectivity, relationships and participation. The purpose of data is to activate support (not take punitive action), solve individual and shared challenges, and identify effective practices whether school is in-person or remote.

At the district level, it is particularly important that the district has protocols in place to make sure data is collected accurately, regularly and consistently for all students, for both in-person and distance learning settings, and that chronic absence data from the prior year is accessible for students who are transitioning from another school.

Attention to Equity

Collecting and disaggregating district data is the primary driver for equitable opportunities and outcomes for all students. Data can provide information on which groups of students and families have unmet needs and require targeted support. Ensure schools combine qualitative information from students and families with quantitative data to develop a deeper understanding of attendance barriers that can help the development of inclusive problem-solving approaches.

Bright Spot

  • Misha Karigaca, Coordinator of Attendance and Discipline Support Services, Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), explains how the district is monitoring new metrics and building dashboards to compare data across schools. Hear Karigaca’s presentation during the webinar, Take A Data Driven Approach to the Transition to School, held during the Institute for Educational Leadership’s #RiseUpForEquity Summit. See this presentation.

  • OUSD already makes chronic absence data widely available to community members through its public dashboards. School staff can see more detailed school data including this preschool experience dashboard.

Resources

  • For traditional in-school attendance, Attendance Works offers free tools to calculate chronic absence at the district and school level

  • For monitoring attendance and participation during hybrid learning environments, see Attendance Works’ new data framework, that adds contact, connectivity, relationships and participation to chronic absence.