How much time is required for my district to participate?

The LIFT Up Attendance program is designed intentionally to be easy to use with minimal time commitment required from school staff. Participating districts will identify at least one staff member to participate virtually in 60 minute initial training, which will cover how to set up and use the LIFT Up Attendance messaging program, details about the messages families and caregivers will receive, options for message customization, as well as best practices for family engagement strategies.

Because the messaging program is built into your student information system (SIS) and will auto-populate all the necessary information, initiating the messages will take only a few minutes each month! Because this is a family engagement intervention, we anticipate the messages may prompt follow up from families and caregivers, which will require some additional staff time.

Who will need to be involved in implementing this program?

While it is up to individual districts to determine which staff should be involved in the piloting process, we recommend convening a small team, including school/district leadership, at the beginning of the year to establish a plan to implement the LIFT Up Attendance program. In addition, the district should designate 1-2 staff who will be responsible for pressing "send" on the messages once per month and responding to questions from families and caregivers as they arise.

Can our district use this program at the same time as other family engagement strategies?

Yes! LIFT Up Attendance can be used in conjunction with other family engagement initiatives or as a standalone engagement strategy.

What kinds of support will our district receive to implement this program?

In Fall 2022, NCRERN will provide a 60 minute initial training, which will cover how to set up and use the LIFT Up Attendance messaging program, details about the messages families and caregivers will receive, options for message customization, as well as best practices for family engagement strategies.

We also recommend districts create a program implementation plan (e.g., creating a calendar for sending the messages, determining who will be responsible for sending messages, etc.). We will provide detail templates and supporting resources to guide this planning process.

The NCRERN program team will be available via email or by phone to districts throughout the year to answer any technical or logistical questions as needed.

Finally, by participating the LIFT Up Attendance Messaging Program National Pilot Study, districts will automatically become members of NCRERN, free of charge. As part of this membership, districts will have access to NCRERN's monthly newsletter, supplemental trainings, and networking events.

What type of information is included in the messages?

LIFT Up Attendance messaging program was designed to address two common reasons for why students frequently miss school: (1) caregivers may be unaware of how much school their student is missing, and (2) caregivers may lack knowledge about the value of daily attendance. Messages provide caregivers with customized information about their student's total number of days absent each month.

I want to use LIFT Up Attendance messages with all families in my district. Why do students need to be randomly selected to participate in 2022-23?

We have seen that the LIFT Up Attendance program can benefit students in rural districts in New York and Ohio, but we want to assess whether the program works in rural districts nationally. By piloting—that is, delivering an intervention to a randomly selected portion of target audience rather than every student in it—NCRERN can better determine whether a strategy is having a positive impact on students’ outcomes. Many ideas that sound good on paper may not benefit students in practice, so piloting an intervention allows a district to determine which innovative ideas truly make a difference. Piloting also limits the risk of trying new interventions and allows schools to learn about implementation challenges and make changes before delivering new interventions to all students. Participating districts will have the option to offer LIFT Up Attendance messages to all students in their district starting in fall 2023.

When will our district get the results from this pilot study?

NCRERN is committed to sharing pilot results with participating districts as quickly as possible to help inform practice. Participating districts will receive results from the pilot study by Fall 2023. Districts will be able to use the results from the pilot to make a determination about whether to offer the LIFT Up Attendance program to all students during the 2023-24 academic year.