Improving School Attendance

2. Improving School Attendance It matters to our entire community.

3. Unpacking Attendance Terms • Average Daily AttendanceThe percent of enrolled students who attend school each day. This determines a school’s funding allocation. • TruancyTypically refers only to unexcused absences. It signals the potential need for legal intervention. • Chronic AbsenceMissing 10% or more of school, excused or unexcused. This indicates a student is academically at risk due to missing too much school.

4. Chronic Absence: A National Crisis • Nationwide, as many as 10-15% of students (7.5 million) miss nearly a month of school every year. • Poor attendance starts as early as kindergarten and pre-kindergarten. • Chronic absenteeism is a red alert that students are headed for academic trouble and eventually for dropping out of high school. • Insert local attendance stat

5. Who is affected? • 1 in 10 children. . . in kindergarten and first grade are chronically absent. In some schools, it’s as high as one in four. • 2 in 10 low-income children. . . miss too much school and are more likely to suffer academically. • 2.5 in 10 homeless children. . . are chronically absent. • 4 in 10 children. . . miss too much school when families move.

7. Why it matters • Who can read on grade level after 3rd grade? 64% of students who missed nine days or fewer in kindergarten and first grade. 43% of kids who missed more than nine days both years. 41% of kids who missed 18 or more days one year. 17% of kids chronically absent in kindergarten and first grade.

8. Starting in Pre-K, chronic absence affects learning and school readiness. Attendance matters most for the children who enter the farthest behind. Analyses control for prior preschool experience, race, gender, neighborhood poverty and social status, special education status, ELL status, and program type. Missing data points represent values with fewer than 30 students.

9. Multiple Years of Elementary Chronic Absence = Worse Middle School Outcomes Each year of chronic absence in elementary school is associated with a substantially higher probability of chronic absence in 6th grade 18.0x • Chronic absence in 1st grade is also associated with: • Lower 6th grade test scores • Higher levels of suspension Increase in probability of 6th grade chronic absence 7.8x 5.9x Years of Chronic Absence in Grades 1-5 Oakland Unified School District SY 2006-2012, Analysis By Attendance Works

10. The Effects of Chronic Absence on Dropout Rates Are Cumulative With every year of chronic absenteeism, a higher percentage of students dropped out of school. http://www.utahdataalliance.org/downloads/ChronicAbsenteeismResearchBrief.pdf

11. Why are students chronically absent? Aversion • Child struggling academically • Lack of engaging instruction • Poor school climate • Parents had negative school experience Myths • Absences are only a problem if they’re unexcused. • Sporadic absences aren’t a problem. • Attendance only matters for teens. Barriers • Lack of access to health care • Poor transportation • No safe path to school

12. Universal Strategies for Building a Culture of Attendance & Identifying Barriers

13. “The reality is an absence is an absence, excused or not, and that child is not in that classroom benefiting from the instruction on that day. We have to work in our community, with our schools and our families to build a culture of attendance." • Ralph Smith, Executive Vice President, Annie E. Casey Foundation

15. What will be our next steps for our plan of action? ??? ??? ???

16. Contact us at:http://partners.berea.edu And learn even more about attendance at www.attendanceworks.com