Preventing-Absenteeism Archives

Description

Alicia Bradley, Director of Student Services at Duncanville ISD, shared two flexible attendance models that boosted ADA funding and student success. RaaWee K12 Solutions supports such innovations with data-driven tools that streamline attendance tracking, helping districts like Duncanville implement effective, flexible programs for at-risk and dual credit students.

Flexible Models to Maximize Instructional Minutes

Duncanville ISD is implementing innovative attendance strategies to better support student success and improve Average Daily Attendance (ADA) funding. Through the Optional Flexible School Day Program (OFSDP), at-risk students can earn attendance with just 45 minutes of daily instruction. In the 2023–2024 school year, six students participated, resulting in a 3% ADA increase from 70% to 73%.

A second approach, the dual credit flexible day model, uses a state-approved waiver to allow 11th and 12th graders enrolled in Dallas College to receive full ADA funding without traditional attendance requirements, preserving instructional quality while respecting students’ academic commitments.

Data-Driven Attendance Solutions

These models were designed in response to attendance trends identified through continuous monitoring, such as seasonal declines at Duncanville Collegiate High School and fluctuations at Pace High School. The OFSDP personalizes instruction through designated flex days, while the dual credit model aligns with state compliance without disrupting college coursework.

Enhancing Accuracy with Smart Tools

Accurate documentation is essential for both compliance and funding. RaaWee Attendance+ supports these initiatives by offering robust tools to track instructional minutes, analyze attendance patterns, and generate reports. As Duncanville ISD continues refining its strategies, smart solutions like RaaWee play a key role in linking academic success to sustainable attendance practices.

About the Presenter

Alicia Bradley, Director of Student Services at Duncanville ISD, TX

Alicia Bradley serves as the Director of Student Services for Duncanville Independent School District (ISD), where she leads a department dedicated to supporting the academic and personal success of students. Under her leadership, the Student Services Department coordinates essential programs and services, including attendance and truancy management, enrollment, residency verification, student transfers, and support for students in foster care or experiencing homelessness. The department also assists with legal and custodial matters, ensuring that all students have access to the resources they need to thrive.

Amir Alavi with Katy Wood discussed shifting SARB from punitive to restorative, using empathy and tailored support. Katy introduced a restorative SART contract that focuses on empathy, understanding family barriers, and providing tailored support. The district expanded attendance teams and uses restorative language. RaaWee truancy prevention software streamlines this process by auto-filling contract data, saving staff time.

Reframing the SARB Process Through a Restorative Lens

Katy and Amir introduced a restorative lens to the traditional SARB process, advocating for a shift from punitive enforcement to empathetic engagement. Using the case of “John Doe,” a hypothetical seventh-grade student navigating ADD, family instability, and trauma, they illustrated how court threats and truancy warnings often compound disengagement rather than solve it.

Building Trust Through Restorative SART Contracts

To foster trust and build bridges, Katy shared a restorative SART contract that helps uncover family challenges through thoughtful dialogue. It includes structured prompts for background context, discussion, and barrier identification; guiding teams toward individualized, supportive interventions. Restorative language and parental partnership were highlighted as essential in creating a safe space for families.

Strengthening Support with Attendance Teams and Technology

The district has bolstered its support infrastructure by deploying attendance teams across school sites, ensuring deeper connection and continuity. RaaWee’s truancy prevention platform complements these restorative efforts by integrating tools like the SART contract into its system. Beyond automation, it enables staff to spend less time on paperwork and more time building the relationships that drive long-term student engagement.

About the Presenter

Amir Alavi, MA JD, Director of Chronic Absenteeism Reduction, Riverside County Office of Education;.

Amir Alavi is a seasoned criminal defense attorney in Riverside County, California, with over a decade of experience as a Deputy District Attorney. He has handled thousands of cases, giving him deep insight into both prosecution and defense strategies. Now leading Alavi Law, he focuses on criminal defense, DUI, and vehicular offenses. Known for his client-centered approach, Alavi combines strong advocacy with a commitment to helping clients make lasting, positive life changes.

Co-Presenter

Katy Wood, MS, NCSP, LEP #3926, Coordinator – Student Support, Attendance & Section 504, Murrieta Valley Unified School DistrictCo-

Significant Strides

Aldine ISD is making significant strides in tackling chronic absenteeism and addressing attendance improvement with a clear strategy rooted in data, structure, and support. With nearly 60,000 students, the district improved its average daily attendance (ADA) by over 1% in just one year, translating into more than $6 million in regained funding and reduced chronic absenteeism from 33.3% to 26.3%.

At the heart of this progress is a focused approach to identifying barriers and delivering personalized interventions, prioritizing students, empowering campuses, and leveraging the right tools.

Structure First: Clear Roles, Shared Ownership

Aldine ISD started by fixing internal gaps. Each attendance role; administrators, assistant principals, clerks, and registrars was clearly defined. This created shared ownership across the system. Weekly check-ins and meetings ensured regular updates on interventions and student progress.

Real-Time Data Drives Smarter Student Supports

Instead of guessing, Aldine ISD uses real-time data to guide decisions. Through RaaWee Attendance+, the district tracks patterns and monitors interventions at both student and campus levels.

This tool highlights areas needing attention and reveals trends. District leaders can then focus resources where they matter most. Weekly reports sent to principals and assistant principals keep everyone aligned and ready to act.

Tiered Support for Targeted Impact

Support isn’t one-size-fits-all. Campuses are tiered based on attendance data. These tiers adjust during the year, depending on performance and need. Each tier comes with clear resources and guidance, creating a supportive not punitive system.

Students in the “yellow” group, who are beginning to slip, get special attention. By stepping in early, the district helps prevent chronic absenteeism.

Strategic Outreach for Student Re-Engagement

Barriers often go beyond school. That’s why the district uses layered outreach. First come calls and texts. If needed, home visits follow. These visits help reconnect families and uncover deeper needs, like relocation or additional support.

Encouragement Through Positive Reinforcement

To keep students engaged, each campus gets a small incentive budget. These funds are used creatively; treats, school supplies, event invites to reward attendance improvements. This builds a culture that values and celebrates showing up.

Equity-Driven, Action-Oriented Approach

Aldine ISD’s model shows that real change comes from systems, data, and people working together. Tools like RaaWee make it easier to spot problems early and act quickly.

By focusing on the right students at the right time, the district delivers support where it’s needed most. This targeted, data-driven approach ensures every resource makes a difference, especially for those most at risk.

Proactive Absenteeism Prevention

Dr. Caroline Gentle-Genitty emphasized proactive absenteeism prevention by tracking attendance, participation, and social factors. She highlighted RaaWee Attendance+ as an exemplary tool for comprehensive data and response. She advocated for integrated systems, prosocial relationships, and policy changes, stressing external influences like sleep and food security in improving attendance.

Understanding Attendance Beyond the Classroom

Dr. Gentle-Genitty highlighting the importance of addressing both in-school and out-of-school factors that contribute to absenteeism. Beyond attendance tracking, she highlighted the role of sleep quality, food security, and home environment in student engagement.

Data-Driven Insights for Intervention

Integrated data systems are key to understanding student behavior. Gentle-Genitty advocated for comprehensive tracking of attendance, participation, and social bonding to provide a holistic view of student experiences. She underscored the importance of direct and indirect control, such as incentives and prosocial relationships, in improving attendance.

Leveraging RaaWee Attendance+ for Monitoring

As an early contributor to RaaWee Attendance+, Gentle-Genitty highlighted its ability to identify attendance barriers and support interventions. The platform integrates multiple data points, allowing educators to make informed decisions that target the root causes of absenteeism.

Collaboration for Long-Term Impact

Successful attendance strategies require cooperation between schools, families, and communities. Action items included revisiting tardy policies, leveraging data for targeted interventions, and continuously reviewing research to refine attendance initiatives.

Shaping Policy for Sustainable Change

Gentle-Genitty stressed the need for policy adjustments and ongoing evaluation to ensure schools are effectively addressing absenteeism. By integrating data, collaboration, and proactive strategies, schools can create lasting improvements in student attendance.

About the Presenter

Dr. Carolyn Gentle-Genitty, founder, lead consultant, and Chief Education Officer for Pivot Attendance Solutions, TX

She has inspired many administrators, educators, students, and school social workers as a past chair of the school’s concentration Masters Curriculum, tenured professor, and Director of the Bachelors for Social Work Program. Having worked closely with Indiana Department of Education to assist school counselors in acquiring a school counselor license and coordinating curriculum mapping and application, she knows the intricacies of working with school-community partnerships. She has been a forerunner in responding to school absenteeism, truancy, and social bonding. She has over 30 years in youth development, 20 years in dropout and truancy and more specifically she brings over 12 years studying, researching, presenting, and writing about absenteeism locally, nationally, and internationally.

In the US she is a leader in absenteeism and understanding school attendance problems and translating such into practice models for implementation. She is forging partnerships in colleges to establish the area as a formal field of study.

Powerful Attendance Improvement

Allison Woods, Assistant Superintendent of Warren Township, shared the district’s attendance efforts. With 11,500 students, including 16% with disabilities and 17% multilingual learners, proactive tracking and engagement reduced chronic absenteeism by 15%. Partnering with RaaWee Attendance+ improved attendance by 8%+ in a year, supported by tiered interventions and family outreach.

The Importance of Student Attendance for Academic Success

Schools increasingly recognize student attendance as vital for academic success. This case study explores MSD Warren’s initiative to improve attendance rates by addressing barriers and fostering accountability. Through strategic communication and targeted interventions, MSD Warren Township has achieved significant improvements.

Background: Challenges in Attendance Rates

Initially, MSD Warren faced attendance rates around 85.11% during the 2021-2022 school year. As a result, different strategies produced uneven results. To address this, the district launched a plan to improve communication, accountability, and student engagement.

Key Strategies for Improving Student Attendance

Cultural Shift in Attendance Perception: The initiative started with changing how attendance was viewed. It stressed the importance of being present for both success and well-being through discussions with families and students.
Systematic Attendance Plan: Additionally, a clear plan outlined communication methods, competitions, and recognition for good attendance, promoting responsibility.
Proactive Communication: Family engagement liaisons also called families of chronically absent students to build support early on.
Tiered Intervention Model: The district implemented a model that addressed attendance issues at three levels, ensuring responses matched the severity of the problem.

Results: Significant Improvements in Attendance Rates

By the end of the 2022-2023 school year, attendance rates improved to about 94%. This change reflects effective strategies and a united effort from the school community.

Conclusion: Lessons Learned for Enhancing Student Attendance

In conclusion, MSD Warren’s approach serves as a helpful example for other schools. By addressing barriers and encouraging accountability, the district raised attendance rates and improved student outcomes. This shows the value of teamwork and proactive actions in making meaningful changes.

About the Presenter

Allison Woods, Asst Superintendent for Exceptional Learners and Whole Child at MSD Warren Township

Allison Woods is an accomplished educator and administrator at MSD Warren Township, dedicated to fostering a positive learning environment and enhancing student achievement. With a strong educational background, she implements innovative teaching strategies and supports teachers in their development. Her commitment to student success is evident through her collaboration with families, staff, and community partners, creating a supportive atmosphere that empowers students.

Allison has been involved in initiatives aimed at improving educational outcomes and promoting equity within the district. Her leadership and dedication have made a significant impact on the MSD Warren Township community, inspiring both students and educators.

Description

We are dedicated to helping educators get their students back to school. The purpose of this information is to point out some roadblocks that impede progress; to help schools reduce chronic absenteeism and get their school-avoidant kids back to learning. We will propose solutions that you can employ to remove these barriers and improve successful school returns.

Problem: School Avoidance Disrupts Families and Challenges Schools.

School avoidance wreaks havoc on families. The following are some examples of how families in our school avoidance alliance community describe it:

Pernicious, Isolating, Overwhelming, Draining, Gut wrenching, Hopeless, Stressful, and Torturous.

School avoidance also profoundly impacts educators who want to help these kids. These are some ways educators describe it:

Frustrating, Confounding, Helpless, Discouraging, Time-Consuming, Lack of Interventions, Feeling like a failure, and Tiring.

There has been an underwhelming amount of guidance on this issue, so schools and educators must seek solutions independently.

The good news is that you and your colleagues have the power to improve student outcomes.

Schools have to commit to addressing this problem.
Misinformation and misconceptions will hamper your efforts to engage effectively with students and their families.
School staff must be thoroughly educated to start tackling this problem. Once the team is educated, they will feel empowered to utilize appropriate interventions, strategies, and engagement.

Problem: Truancy and School Avoidance are Different.

School avoidance is motivated by severe emotional distress; the parents know the child is not attending and usually are trying to help their kids back. On the other hand, truancy is usually motivated by pleasure and not anxiety-based, it is concealed from the parents, and kids seek to increase positive emotions.

Labeling school-avoidant kids as truants causes inappropriate and often damaging responses.
Kids with school avoidance are not deliberately ditching school. Internal feelings of distress, discomfort and fear cause their avoidant behavior.
An excellent first step would be to adjust how you define truancy and label kids with school avoidance as truant.

Another huge issue that should be evaluated is punitive responses. And responses that feel punitive to families and their students. Family feedback on this issue reveals the following school responses make families think the school is unfeeling, unkind, and punishing.

Curt and cold attendance letters with threats of fines, truancy charges, and court appearances.
Sending police officers to the home
Failing students without considering their school avoidance is caused by mental health challenges or learning differences.
Utilizing grade retention.
Calling in child protective services with no evidence of parental neglect.

The school attendance, mental health, and SEL community have promoted restorative practices over punitive ones for several years. Unfortunately, this guidance needs to trickle down to individual schools faster. These responses often create acrimony between school and home, countering best practices for getting kids back to school.

Problem: Early Interventions Take Work to Achieve.

Early interventions are among the most critical drivers for reducing school avoidance and getting students back quicker. Performing early action is dependent on the following factors:

Educating families on school avoidance, since most parents are unaware of it, they often miss early signs and are unsure how to help the situation.
Families don’t realize their school has a team of mental health professionals available to help them.
Provide your staff with school avoidance professional development to recognize signs, signals, and triggers. Being educated on this unique challenge will show them how to respond and strategically approach each school-avoidant student according to their individual needs.
Another essential suggestion to help improve early interventions is to include your school counselors, attendance staff, school nurses, and truancy folks when you provide school avoidance professional development. These professionals are on the front lines and have access to these students first. They can intervene in the early stages before absenteeism becomes chronic.

Closing

The problem of school avoidance will continue to grow if schools don’t reevaluate their responses and interventions. You may not realize it, but you are an agent of change. It takes one person to start the process. Educators like you deserve that feeling of self-satisfaction and gratitude when you contribute to helping a child back to school and improve their life trajectory.

About the Author

For the past decade, Jayne has been helping families get kids with school avoidance back to school. In 2014, she started the School Avoidance Alliance to educate families and schools on school avoidance best practices and evidence -based solutions. In additional to the School Avoidance Alliance website, Jayne developed one-of-a-kind educational resources for both parents and educators. Some of their resources are, The School Avoidance Parent’s Ultimate Guide to Working with Your School, The School Avoidance Master Class for Parents: A Tier 2 and Tier 3 Intervention for chronic absenteeism, a course schools purchase for parents, and an Educator training course called, Everything You Need to Know to Get Your Students Back to School.

Jayne serves on the International Network for School Attendance (INSA) conference committee and was recently honored as a featured speaker at INSA’s Making Waves in School Attendance Annual Conference in the Netherlands in October 2022. She’s also been featured in Education Week, The Washington Post, CBS News, Yahool Life and USA Today.