Embedded Files
We have developed this Attendance Playbook to share the practices that have been successful in our schools.
The site is organized by the "steps" that a school can take to improve attendance, and you could use this site as a "roadmap" for your team's attendance journey. There are resources, how-to guides, templates, examples and videos featuring schools that have successfully used these practices and strategies to improve attendance and reduce chronic absence.
Please email Eugene at eli2@schools.nyc.gov if you have any questions, suggestions or if you would like to contribute or share a promising practice that has been successful for your team. This is a work in progress. So, we any feedback that would improve this resource for yourself and others.
Each title below includes resources to help you improve student attendance and reduce chronic absenteeism.
Step 1: Form an Attendance Team
Step 1: Form an Attendance Team
Who: The Attendance Team is led by the Principal or Principal’s designee and includes the Attendance Coordinator, Guidance Counselors, Social Workers, Assistant Principal, lead teachers, Parent Coordinator, Success Mentors, Centrally Funded Attendance Teacher and other key staff. Invite CBO partners from the neighborhood—family or youth service providers, local health, library or recreation centers. Each member of the attendance team should have a clearly defined role and the capacity to perform their role.
What and Why: Review school-wide attendance trends and use a data-informed approach to ensure the right resources and supports get to the right students at the right time.
When: The Attendance Team meets weekly to focus on students' attendance and barriers to their success. Facilitated by the Principal or Principals designee, this meeting is a vital part of a proactive attendance strategy in NYC Schools.
Resources
Step 2: Conduct a Self-Assessment
Step 2: Conduct a Self-Assessment
Step 3: Develop School Attendance Plan
Step 3: Develop School Attendance Plan
Attendance Plan Template This template is designed to help schools develop an attendance plan. It includes questions and prompts to help schools set annual goals and progress goals, analyze root causes for chronic absenteeism, and map out tiered supports for chronically absent students and plan ahead to celebrate and recognize students for good and improved attendance.
Resources
School Year Attendance Activities Planning Calendar with examples
Systems and Routines: Develop systems and routines that drive daily outreach and ensure that every student's attendance is accurate.
Daily attendance outreach systems and structures. Contact families by phone when students have not arrived by the end of first period. (click this link for more information)
Early Intervention: Assign a point person to monitor attendance trend data and intervene early when students show concerning attendance patterns to prevent them becoming LTAs. Click here to learn more.
Attendance Team Practices
Tiered Interventions: Use data to identify targeted tiered interventions for students based on their individual needs.
Tier 1: Prevention
Tier 2: Early Intervention
Tier 3: Specialize Intervention
Culture, Celebrations, Incentives
Growth Mindset
Restorative Attendance Practices
Family Engagement
Instruction
Step 4: Implement Best Practices and Strategies
We have been working with school leaders and attendance teams on building capacity, systems and structures in order to improve attendance and reduce chronic absenteeism. This year, we want to focus our support on helping attendance teams implement the practices that have shown the most impact:
systems and procedures with redundancy to ensure attendance is recorded accurately and reversals are processed efficiently (coming soon)
early intervention when students show a pattern of absences,
success mentoring
school-wide messaging and activities that create a culture that promotes student engagement and removes barriers to regular attendance.
The resources include how to guides and videos featuring people who have successfully used these practices and strategies to improve attendance and reduce chronic absence.
Systems and Routines
Develop systems and routines that drive daily outreach and ensure that every student's attendance is accurate.
Watch this video (not available yet) to see how
Contact families by phone when students have not arrived by the end of first period.
Click here to learn more.
Early Intervention
Assign a point person to monitor attendance trend data and intervene early when students show concerning attendance patterns to prevent them becoming LTAs.
Click here to learn more
Tiered Interventions
Personalize student interventions to encourage regular attendance.
Click here to learn more
Target Parent Misbeliefs
Parents tend to underestimate their children's absences and the adverse impact chronic absence has on academic success.
Delivering personalized information through repeated rounds of mail-based messaging reduces student absenteeism by targeting key misbeliefs held by parents of at-risk students.
This study reports the results from a large-scale randomized experiment evaluating this intervention.
Please contact Eugene for some time-saving methods for implementing this strategy.
Incentives and Recognition
Only celebrating perfect attendance can have a negative impact on students and does not lead to improved attendance for students.
Root Cause Analysis
Engage in a root cause analysis that focuses on the elements are within the school’s scope of influence that affect attendance.
Success Mentoring
Coming soon
Process for doing reversals from JumpRope (from 3/6)
Establishing peer mentor circles/structures around attendance (from 3/6 Vanguard consultancy)
Target CA reduction plan (CSSJ streamlined version?)
Identifying CA root causes
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