Executive Summary
After more than a year of pandemic living, learning, and working is beginning to subside, schools and districts are rapidly shifting gears in preparation for bringing students and staff back on campus for full-day instruction, athletics, and extracurricular activities. While there is palpable excitement at the prospect of schools opening back up, we are also aware that many students and families will need some extra support getting back into their daily routines, especially those related to in-person attendance. This research report is a forward look into the potential challenges that educators all over the country anticipate will need addressing when school resumes, as well as innovative ideas and strategies to help students readjust to patterns of good attendance and work habits.
RaaWee K12 Solutions is working alongside professionals in the education field to develop real-time responses to positively impact student attendance, offer interventions, and prevent increasing rates of truancy and chronic absenteeism. The report that follows is an in-depth examination of the problems, as well as the solutions we can leverage to foster what’s worked well in this year of growth and opportunity.
Introduction
You may have heard the conventional theory that it takes human beings around three weeks (or approximately 21 days) to form a new or break an old habit. More current research on the topic from University College London (2010) found that the average time it takes to change a behavior is actually 66 days, with individual results ranging from 18 to a staggering 254 days (Lally, Jaarsved,
et. al.). Considering that most American families have been participating in school virtually or in hybrid models for the past 365 or more days, we are facing a daunting re-entry process to on-location, on-time, in-person, and full-day instruction.
A majority of adults and young people alike have left behind their past habits of rising to an alarm clock, juggling morning routines, eating breakfast on the fly,
navigating rush hour traffic, and arriving at school drop-off…all before the warning bell rings. What we did almost unconsciously before COVID-19, we now have to intentionally reestablish. As our nation starts to open back up and we collectively resume some of our pre-pandemic activities, however, not everything will return to the “way it was”. Thus, we need to predict, anticipate, and plan for
student attendance scenarios that may have existed in the past, but have evolved in unique ways. RaaWee K12 Solutions is on the forefront of that curve and is prepared to help schools, districts, families, and children more smoothly reintegrate into their educational environments.
Attendance Issues At Stake
An article posted on the National Conference of State Legislators website noted that,
Educators responding to an October Education Week survey reported that unexcused absences doubled after the onset of the pandemic. Absenteeism is associated with other negative consequences for students, including worse performance in coursework and on standardized tests, lower college attendance rates, reduced lifetime earnings, and increased incarceration rates. Absenteeism and its negative effects were more prevalent among low-income students and students of color before the pandemic; early reports suggest that these vulnerable students are being hit harder by these challenges in the COVID-19 era as well (Brown, 3/15/21).
In the same study, NCES (2009) both asked and answered the critical question, “Why does technology matter?” when it comes to attendance accounting: “Although technology has improved greatly over the years, attendance continues to be recorded by hand in some organizations, which invariably leads to entry errors and data quality concerns…A school without an automated data system may fail to contact
parents in a timely manner when students don’t come to school which is often a key factor in attendance intervention efforts (p. 14).
While significant research has already been conducted to identify student groups typically at risk of chronic absenteeism and truancy, many others–who had been
attending regularly, but stopped doing so at some point within this current school year–are joining their ranks. We need to pinpoint who these new absentees consist of and how we can help them, along with their peers, find their way back to school.
One of the most pertinent issues is that before the pandemic, alternative educational models such as virtual schools, hybrid classrooms, homeschooling, independent study, and flexible scheduling lingered around the edges of public education. These options were few and far between, attended by less than 10% of the population, and often considered to be on the fringe of what was “normal”.
In the “new normal” of 2020, however, those settings became the rule rather than the exception; and while we initially considered them to be temporary, we now know that they have permanently changed our educational landscape.
Though many will return to school in its relatively traditional format, we now must contend with the fact that instruction can be accessed in previously unconventional ways that several parents and students now prefer. It may make things more complicated from an organizational standpoint, but these alternatives should be celebrated as much-needed progress away from the one-size-fits-all educational institutions of the 20th century. If one good thing is rising out of the dust of the pandemic, it’s that our eyes are wider open to new and exciting possibilities for the future of K-12 schooling.
Though many will return to school in its relatively traditional format, we now must contend with the fact that instruction can be accessed in previously unconventional ways that several parents and students now prefer. It may make things more complicated from an organizational standpoint, but these alternatives should be celebrated as much-needed progress away from the one-size-fits-all educational institutions of the 20th century. If one good thing is rising out of the dust of the pandemic, it’s that our eyes are wider open to new and exciting possibilities for the future of K-12 schooling.
Regardless of the choices that families will soon be making on the horizon of the 2021-22 school year, there is still one non-negotiable: attendance matters. Perhaps more than ever.
In their proactive approach to capture new ways of measuring and tracking accountability, RaaWee recently reached out to a variety of stakeholders and constituents to explore two key research questions in order to craft tools, communications, and strategies regardless of the educational format or circumstances families choose to avail themselves of going forward.
The Research Questions
In their proactive approach to capture new ways of measuring and tracking accountability, RaaWee recently reached out to a variety of stakeholders and constituents to explore two key research questions in order to craft tools, communications, and strategies regardless of the educational format or circumstances families choose to avail themselves of going forward.
1
What do you anticipate (or have already experienced) the impact or challenges will be on student attendance when we return to full-time in-person daily instruction (e.g., chronic truancy, tardies, readiness to learn, physical/emotional barriers, breaking bad habits etc.)?
2
What would be helpful interventions, strategies, or tools that would help make the transition back easier on students, families, and staff (e.g., communications, tracking, activities, incentives, etc.)?
Interviews were conducted with several district-level administrators, school site staff, parents, and students to deepen RaaWee’s understanding of attendance related issues different groups of people may be facing now and in the near future, as well as to gather novel ideas to support transitions back to campus.
Parents & Student Voices
Laura Guajardo is the parent of a high school junior and senior, who also works at the Santa Clara County Office of Education and is a former continuation high school teacher herself. Her daughters have been earning straight A’s for the
first time in their lives while in distance learning. Her senior candidly stated, “I miss
school, but I’m going to be distracted when I go
back. I’m there for the social aspect.
If I see a sub in the classroom, I’m just not going to go in. I know I won’t learn anything, so why bother?” This response underscores Whitney & Lui’s (2017) finding
that, “Students in secondary school skip many classes even when they are in the school. Approximately half of the days that they are not in a specific class, they
attend other classes” (p.32). The fact that students are willing to physically show up at school, but vote with their feet when it comes to deciding what classes are
worth attending, speaks volumes and reaffirms research that we’ll later discuss on the impact of teacher efficacy on student attendance.
A middle school student we spoke with who had endured bullying and negative social interactions in the pre-pandemic world related to their gender identity, bluntly stated, “I don’t care if I ever go back. I finish all of my work online. Then I get to take care of my chickens, walk my dog, and draw. I see my friends on the weekend. Why go back to school?” While another 13-year-old we talked to said they couldn’t wait to get back to “meet my teachers, join the drama club, and play soccer at lunch with my friends”. These contrasting views illustrate just two of the millions of personal preferences, expectations, and experiences that shape students’ feelings about attending school.
Guajardo’s parental and professional response is that we need to shift instructional modalities so that learning is more inquiry-based, engaging, and meaningful. She challenges the publicly coined term “learning loss” as supporting a deficit mentality and thinks it should be rephrased more inclusively as “unfinished learning”. As for ways to spark renewed interest, she proclaims: “Harness the power of TikTok to reach kids and invite them back to school!”
In a study conducted with over 28,000 households in 2018, Rogers & Feller concluded that, “Parents severely underestimate their students’ total absences.
A pilot survey of parents of high-absence students in our partner school district
shows that parents underestimate their own students’ absences by a factor of 2
(9.6 estimated absences vs. 17.8 actual absences). We find that providing total
absences information corrects parents’ biased beliefs, and nearly doubles the
absence-reducing impact of reminders about the importance of absences” (p.4).
Simply put, perception is reality until we challenge it with hard evidence and
customized tools to impact individual conduct.
This is compelling evidence for both the developers of attendance-tracking platforms and their end-user personnel at schools and districts. Sharing real-time data that drills down into student-specific patterns and clearly communicating the information to caregivers will have a significant influence on changing behaviors. RaaWee understands that addressing the micro-level of student-by-student needs is just as crucial as displaying the macro-level of systemic trends so districts and school staff can plan for and respond programmatically as well.
School Site Staff Perspectives
David Thornley, principal of a high needs
elementary school in Fremont, California
anticipates a severe tardy problem when
full-time school resumes. After a year of developing bad habits, kids may struggle with waking up and getting to school. “Even if we try to accommodate them by offering flexible schedules, it creates additional burdens on working parents who may not have the ability to drop off or
pick up students at non-traditional times of day.”
He believes we should incentivize a growth model with clear lines and expectations from the start. Rephrasing our communications to parents, especially related to the SARB process, as well as having a digital platform connected to the Student Information System (SIS) that evaluates patterns and trends would be a tremendous help to him as a principal. RaaWee’s variety of prevention and intervention tools make this work easier for leaders like Principal Thornley. At a few clicks of a mouse, the data is revealed and can be immediately applied into practice.
As a person whose sole job is to focus on attendance, elementary site attendance clerk in Hayward Unified School District, Drielle Brown, worries that the ever-changing plans districts have been experiencing due to evolving state and county directives, may confuse matters for parents and children. That, in combination with the fact that many of the youngest students will be completely unfamiliar with school routines as well as proper social interactions, she expects that we will need to help shore up their resiliency.
Since they started in distance learning, Brown notes that her school’s chronic absentee rate has diminished, but believes it will likely shoot back up even higher when in-person instruction resumes. She also predicts that for some children, sitting in class for five-six hours a day may result in rebellious behaviors that distract others from learning. Her solutions to the re-entry dilemmas include bolstering the face-to-face relationships that have dropped
off over the past year and painting a realistic version of what kids are coming back to in the fall. Along with the needed safety protocols, she also thinks that providing incentives, goals, extra recess time, and holding class outdoors might be good strategies to support the transitions.
To Brown’s point, RaaWee K12 provides districts with the ability to track and identify more than traditional absenteeism, including issues such as “Present,
but Not Engaged”, which has lately become the “new absent.” By focusing on emerging trends such as these, RaaWee’s Truancy & Drop-out Prevention System
(TDPS) also puts recommended resources and collaborative ideas at the
fingertips of staff. What many schools and districts are spending countless hours
doing manually, RaaWee has systematized automatically.
While it may seem like a given that classroom teachers make an immense and lasting impact on young people’s growth, development, and ability to reach their goals and potential, but not many have explicitly linked it to the significant influence on student attendance. Liu & Loeb (2019) confirmed: “Overall, we find that teachers have large effects on student attendance. A student would have approximately 44 percent fewer unexcused absences in math classes and 54 percent fewer in English classes, if she had a teacher who is one standard deviation above the average in value added to attendance than if she had an average teacher, holding other variables constant” (p.4). They also noted that, “A teacher who has high value-added to attendance can engage students in class and motivate the student to pursue higher academic goals. Not surprisingly, benefits from these teachers are more salient for students with low prior attendance and low prior achievement” (p.33). This is particularly relevant to the vast research that the student groups who struggle most respond more positively attendance-wise when possessing strong relationships with their teachers.
While it may seem like a given that classroom teachers make an immense and lasting impact on young people’s growth, development, and ability to reach their goals and potential, but not many have explicitly linked it to the significant influence on student attendance. Liu & Loeb (2019) confirmed: “Overall, we find that teachers have large effects on student attendance. A student would have approximately 44 percent fewer unexcused absences in math classes and 54 percent fewer in English classes, if she had a teacher who is one standard deviation above the average in value added to attendance than if she had an average teacher, holding other variables constant” (p.4). They also noted that, “A teacher who has high value-added to attendance can engage students in class and motivate the student to pursue higher academic goals. Not surprisingly, benefits from these teachers are more salient for students with low prior attendance and low prior achievement” (p.33). This is particularly relevant to the vast research that the student groups who struggle most respond more positively attendance-wise when possessing strong relationships with their teachers.
Classroom teacher, Ramon Reyes, from Boise Idaho corroborates this theory.
He has worked with at-risk young people in a variety of settings and knows the
importance of strong relationships. Using techniques such as texting
encouraging words to his students, checking in via office hours online and by
phone, and sharing his own personal struggles with school as a teen help him
forge connections with students on the verge of dropping out. He operates from
the perspective of, “We know they are out there. And that they need us. How
can we find them and bring them back?” Technology has been very helpful
during distance learning in this vein and he underscores services like the ones
the RaaWee offers would support his outreach efforts immensely in that he could
simply and easily customize messages to individuals or groups of students with
similar attendance issues to “bring them back”.
Thus, we should encourage teachers to build those personal connections, exhibit
authentic care, and intentionally leverage the magnitude of their favorable
effects on student attendance outcomes. RaaWee regards knowledge as power,
which is why they have developed and refined their products to communicate
data to teachers in digestible ways so they can act on the information and
consciously work on improving student attendance outcomes.
Trusted by Thousands of Schools Across the Nation
Trusted by Thousands of Schools Across the Nation
