“The RaaWee System has been a huge help to ESUHSD, allowing us to monitor and track truant students so that we can intervene earlier and more frequently,” says Jennifer Casel, Student Services Coordinator at 24.500-student East Side Union High School District in San Jose, CA. “Overall, we saw a decrease in the number of total student days absent across the district, which translates into roughly $840,000,” she says.

How does RaaWee K12 Solutions ensure measurable differences in school attendance?

RaaWee K12 Solutions ensures measurable differences in school attendance through collaborative research and shared expertise with school districts. As Zepeda states, RaaWee brings expertise in systems and technology, while districts like East Side Union High School provide their deep knowledge of school attendance, fostering an investigative and exploratory partnership to achieve results.

How does RaaWee ATTENDANCE+™ achieve effective and efficient truancy and dropout prevention?

Having access to real-time data for interventions management and attendance tracking, the district has experienced significant improvement, having 12,500
lesser full-day absences in the first year using TDPS, meaning they’ll bring in even more in ADA funding as a result. Is that even correct? “Absolutely!” says Jennifer,
explaining: “We send letters out to families once per week, allowing them an opportunity to be informed on a more frequent basis when their child is accruing unexcused absences. The regular monitoring has also enabled us to intervene earlier and provide students and their families with academic programs that might be a better fit as well as prevent some students from becoming chronic absentees.”
In sum, the system is an “Early intervention to aid in getting students back to school so that we minimize the loss of instructional minutes,” she says.

Benefits to using a system solely dedicated to truancy and dropout prevention? “The system is set up and dedicated to prevention and intervention; there are no
special reports we have to customize through our Student Information System and we have been able to automate the process of sending letters to families. We used to send notification of truancy to families monthly and then were only able to focus on those with the the greatest number of unexcused absences as we lacked the manpower to efficiently manage the overall process.”

What advice do districts offer for implementing RaaWee ATTENDANCE+™ and improving attendance rates?

Districts advise starting RaaWee ATTENDANCE+™ today due to its ease of management, robust functionality, and impeccable customer service. Jennifer from ESUHSD recommends immediate adoption, noting that while onboarding from a 'home-grown' system took time, managing RaaWee became very easy. She highlights added functionalities like monthly perfect attendance certificates and alerts for consecutive unexcused absences, which positively impact attendance rates. Jennifer also praises the RaaWee team for being exceptionally helpful in customizing features and providing impeccable customer service, noting their shared focus on improving attendance.