Harnessing Your Resources to Improve Attendance

1. Harnessing Your Resources to  Improve Attendance Through School, Family and Community Collaborations December 6, 2017

2. Positive Engagement: Uses caring relationships, effective messaging and a positive school climate to motivate daily attendance. Actionable Data: Is accurate, accessible, and regularly reported in an understandable format. Capacity BuildingExpands abilityto work together to interpret data, engage in problem solving, and adopt best practices to improve attendance. Shared Accountability: Ensures chronic absence is monitoring & reinforced by policy Strategic Partnerships between district and communitypartners address specific attendance barriers and mobilize support for all ingredients ,.,t..,.. WAtorks EVERYONE GRADUATES MENTOR JOIIS FOIi IHtfUIUU

3. Actionable Data: Chronic Absence (CA) Chronic Absence Excused Absences Unexcused Absences + + Suspension • Important Differences - • Truancy= unexcused absences (s. 1003.26(b), F.S.) • Average Daily Attendance = how many students show up each day • Chronic Absence = missing so much school for any reason that a student is academically at-risk - missing 10% or more of school www.attendanceworks.org

4. Average Daily Attendance Can Mask High Percentages of CA

5. Prevalence of Chronic Absenteeism • Based on national research, conservative estimates: • 10% of US students miss 21+ days of school per year • 14-15% of US students miss 18+ days of school per year 5-7.5 million students each year!! • 13/14 OCR data found 6.8 million students missed 15+ days of school Balfanz & Byrnes, 2012; U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2016

6. Easy to Overlook Patterns of Chronic Absence in Individual Students Get Schooled Interactive webpage: https://getschooled.com/dashboard/tool/343-attendance-counts?type=tool

7. Prevalence of CA in FL • According to data reported to FL DOE during the 2015/2016 school year, 10.10% of K-12 students were absent 21+ days 318,787students- an increase from 304,060 students in 14/15

8. 2015-16 Chronic Absenteeism Rates 0 – 9.9%  10% – 14.9%  15% – 19.9% 20% – 30+% Statewide Average 10.10% Source: Education Information and Accountability Services, Florida Department of Education

9. Patterns in Chronic AbsenceAcross the Grade Levels • Rates typically drop after Kindergarten through 5th • Rise significantly in middle and high school Balfanz & Byrnes, 2012

10. Chronic Absenteeism by Demographics Balfanz & Byrnes, 2012

11. 2015-16 SWD Chronic Absenteeism Rates 0 – 9.9%  10% – 14.9%  15% – 19.9% 20% – 30+% Statewide Average 15.05% Source: Education Information and Accountability Services, Florida Department of Education

12. Impact of Chronic Absence During Early Years Attendance Works, 2016

13. Does Kindergarten Really Count? Students who experience chronic absence in Kindergarten have: • Lower academic performance in 1st Grade • Lower reading and math proficiency in 3rd grade • Weak social and academic skills to help the student engage in learning

14. Chronic Early Absence Connected to Poor Long-term Academic Outcomes • A Rhode Island Data Hub analysis found that compared to kindergartners who attended regularly, those chronically absent: • Scored 20% lower in reading and math in later grades and gap grows • 2X as likely to be retained in grade • 2X likely to be suspended by the end of 7th grade • Likely to continue being chronically absent National Student Attendance, Engagement, and Success Center (NSAESC) Virtual National Convening, 2017

15. National Student Attendance, Engagement, and Success Center (NSAESC) Virtual National Convening, 2017

16. National Student Attendance, Engagement, and Success Center (NSAESC) Virtual National Convening, 2017

17. Being in school on a regular basis … … drives student success • Exposure to Language: Starting in pre-K, attendance equals exposure to language-rich environments • Time on Task in Class: Student only benefit from classroom instruction if they are in class • On track for Success: Chronic absence is a proven early warning signal that a student is behind in reading by 3rd grade, failing course in middle and high school, and likely to drop out • College and Career Ready: Cultivating the habit of regular attendance help students develop the persistence needed to show up every day for college and work. • Engagement: Attendance reflects engagement in learning • Effective Practice: Schools, communities, and families can improve attendance when they work together.

18. Proposed Reasons for Chronic Absenteeism Barriers/Can’t Aversions/Won’t Disengagement/Don’t Something prevents them from attending (illness, transportation, child care or family obligations) Avoidance of interactions or events at school (affective or perceptions physical/ psychological safety issues, school climate, stress) Would rather be somewhere else, do not make the effort to attend school and/or do not see the value in school Balfanz & Byrnes, 2012

19. Florida’s Early Warning Indicators Grades K-8 (1001.42 F.S.)

20. 17 www.FLDOE.org

21. Remembering Why https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuUHrx2SOY4

22. Best Practices: Community Engagement • Baltimore City Schools and a local non- profit organization, Eleve8, provided funding for an Asthma Clinic in 3 schools. Attendance improved by 30%! • The New York transit authority provided free bus passes to parents with school-aged children

23. Best Practices: Community Engagement • Community outreach and messaging on the importance of attendance • Absences Add Up! • http://absencesaddup.org/the-campaign • Engage community partners in problem solving to assist in developing and implementing interventions to break down barriers to school attendance

24. Best Practices: Positive Engagement Pittsburgh Public Schools • School wide attendance initiatives • Be There Campaign Oakland Unified Schools • ‘I'm In’ Project • Send a letter emphasizing what the child is missing in school • Offer assistance to parents to ensure the child is in school.

25. NSAESC April 2017 Virtual National Convening

26. RESOURCES

27. Collect Data to Analyze the “Why” of CA-for Individual Students Implement Interventions to Address the “Why”: Health, Transportation, Social/Emotional, School Climate Consider Wrap-Around Supports Monitor Effectiveness of Interventions (EWS: Attendance, Grades, Graduation How Do We Address CA? FEW SOME ALL

28. Tools for Self-Reflection School-Level • http://www.attendanceworks.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/School-Self-Assessment-Tool-revised-August-2014.pdf District-Level • http://www.attendanceworks.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Community-Self-Assess-1-pager-April-15-Revised-2013-.pdf

29. Strategic Partnerships http://www.ncset.org/publications/essentialtools/mapping/NCSET_EssentialTools_ResourceMapping.pdf

30. Tools for Analyzing Your Data • http://www.attendanceworks.org/tools/tools-for-calculating-chronic-absence/ • http://www.attendanceworks.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/DATT-and-SATT-flyer-8.16.16Final.pdf

31. Tools for Analyzing Your Data: RCA • http://www.floridarti.usf.edu/resources/topic/chronic_absenteeism/index.html

32. Tools for Messaging: Attendance Works & Nudge Letters http://awareness.attendanceworks.org/resources/count-us-toolkit-2017/ https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/absent-students-schools-attendance-nudge-letters/

33. Best Practices: Community Engagement • Community outreach and messaging on the importance of attendance • Absences Add Up! • http://absencesaddup.org/the-campaign • Engage community partners in problem solving to assist in developing and implementing interventions to break down barriers to school attendance

34. Positive Engagement https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/protective/pdf/connectedness.pdf

35. Table Discussion: Planning • Actionable Data • Positive Engagement • Capacity Building • Shared Accountability • Strategic Partnerships Next Steps ….

36. Action Plan Activity

37. Contact Information Iris Williams Social Work Consultant iriswilliams@usf.edu Amber Brundage Coordinator Research & Evaluation abrundage@usf.edu Facebook: flpsrti Twitter: @flpsrti

38. Additional Readings Allensworth, E. M., & Easton, J. Q. (2005). The on-track indicator as a predictor of high school graduation. Consortium on Chicago School Research, University of Chicago. Retrieved from http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/p78.pdf Allensworth, E. M., & Easton, J. Q. (2007). What matters for staying on track and graduating in Chicago public high schools. Consortium on Chicago School Research, University of Chicago. Retrieved from http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/07%20What%20Matters%20Final.pdf Allesnworth, E. M., Gwynne, J. A., Moore, P., & de la Torre, M. (2014). Looking forward to high school and college Middle grades indicators of readiness in Chicago public schools. Consortium on Chicago School Research, University of Chicago. Retrieved from https://ccsr.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Middle%20Grades%20Report.pdf Balfanz, R., & Byrnes, V. (2012). Chronic Absenteeism: Summarizing What We Know From Nationally Available Data. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Center for Social Organization of Schools. Balfanz, R., Herzog, L., MacIver, D., (2007). Preventing student disengagement and keeping students on the graduation path in urban middle-grades schools: Early identification and effective interventions. Educational Psychologist, 42(4), 223-235.

39. Additional Readings Continued Chang, Hedy N. & Romero, Mariajosé 2008. Present, engaged and accounted for the critical importance of addressing chronic absence in the early grades. National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP): The Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Connolly, F. & Olson, L. S. 2012. Early elementary performance and attendance in Baltimore City Schools’ pre-kindergarten and kindergarten. Baltimore Education Research Consortium, Baltimore, MD. Henderson, T., Hill, C. & Norton, K. 2014. The connection between missing school and health: A review of chronic absenteeism and student health in Oregon. Upstream Public Health. Olson, L. S., 2014. Why September matters: Improving student attendance. Baltimore Education Research Consortium, Baltimore, MD. Retrieved from : http://baltimore-berc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/SeptemberAttendanceBriefJuly2014.pdf Chang, H., & Balfanz, R., (2016). Preventing missed opportunity: Taking collective action to confront chronic absence. Attendance Works and Everyone Graduates Center.