Resources to Improve Attendance and Engagement

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Resources Available to Improve Attendance and Engagement

This section includes resources that may help schools, districts, and COEs improve attendance and engagement within local contexts, including:

• A list of resources organized by type of supports, including health and safety, student connectedness, and family engagement
• A sample truancy letter that reflects recent changes to the California Education Code

List of Sample Attendance Interventions

This guidance has identified three cross-cutting strategic priorities for improving attendance in California: Health, Well-Being and Safety, and Family Engagement and Student Connectedness. This section of the guidance offers examples of evidence-based strategies that schools, districts, COEs and community partners can consider and tailor based on what would work best for their students and families given local assets, realities, and challenges. For additional information, please refer to the Attendance Playbook from FutureEd and the Guide to the Attendance Playbook from Attendance Works .

Health, Well-Being, and Safety

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Healthy Schools Campaign (PDF) , addressing physical and mental health-related causes of absences and promoting student well-being can improve attendance. Key strategies with links to supporting research appear below.

• Health promotion: Prevent students from getting sick through access to immunizations and improved indoor air quality ; cultivate healthy habits through better hygiene (such as handwashing ), physical activity , and increasing access to nutritious meals .
• Easy access to vision, hearing, and dental screening and care: Studies show that vision screening and hearing services can improve learning, which in turn can help keep a child engaged and learning so they are more likely to show up. Research also shows that poor oral health contributes to millions of lost school hours per year and school-based dental programs can reduce chronic absenteeism.
• On-site health services: If possible (such as school nurses , school-based health services , community partnerships , and telehealth ), these services support the physical and behavioral health needs of students. This can be especially important for students with disabilities and chronic health issues. For example, a study in Denver confirmed the important role school nurses play in coordinating care for students with asthma , leading to reduced school absence and improved asthma control.
• Mental health services through on-site services and partnerships with community partners: The Impact of School Mental Health Services on Reducing Chronic Absence describes different models of care that have shown improvements in attendance and overall student behavioral health.
• Development of positive social and behavioral skills for all students: An evaluation of Positive Action, a social–emotional character development program, shows reduced student chronic absence as one of the outcomes (PDF). Other research shows implementing school climate initiatives such as Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports can improve attendance.

Family Engagement

Parents and families are essential partners in promoting good attendance because they ultimately have the bottom-line responsibility for making sure their children get to school every day. Strong family engagement can improve student attendance. In the 2023 Family Engagement Impact study , Learning Heroes found that schools with stronger family engagement had better attendance and lower rates of chronic absence than schools with weaker family engagement. Here are a few strategies that research shows can improve attendance:

• Welcoming School Environments: An analysis of family engagement surveys from the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) shows that districts and schools with higher ratings on a family engagement survey had statistically lower percentages of students who were chronically absent. In addition, as chronic absenteeism in a school decreased, student academic performance increased. The survey showed that two areas of family engagement were found to be significantly correlated to lower chronic absenteeism: “Welcoming Environment” and “Sharing Power and Advocacy.”
• Two-way communications: Research from before the COVID-19 pandemic showed two-way texting in families’ home languages could reduce chronic absence . After the pandemic, a study confirms the value using TalkingPoints as an example.
• Effective, non-blaming, attendance notifications: How we write to families about absences is extremely important. Research on nudge letters has found that correcting parents’ underestimates of how much school students missed (PDF) can improve attendance by a few days. Another study conducted in California found truancy notifications were more likely to improve attendance if they shifted away from legalistic language to simplified language, emphasized parental efficacy, and highlighted the negative consequences of missing school.
• High-quality relational home visiting: Parent Teacher Home Visits is a home visiting model with multiple research studies showing improved attendance for students as a byproduct of relational home visits . The model has five non-negotiables and is generally seen as a Tier 1 practice suitable for all students. Connecticut’s Learner Engagement and Attendance Program is a home visit model that is designed for Tier 2 intervention with students who are chronically absent. It has been evaluated and demonstrated impact .

Student Connectedness

Researchers have identified four specific factors (PDF) that contribute to feelings of school connectedness. Students are connected to schools when they:

1. believe there is an adult at school who knows and cares about them;
2. have a supportive peer group;
3. engage, at least some of the time, in activities they find meaningful and that help others; and
4. feel seen, heard, and welcome in school.

Below are a few key approaches to advancing student connectedness.

• Sense of Belonging: Research shows that when students feel a strong sense of belonging , they do better academically and have fewer absences. For more information about how to nurture and monitor belonging, a free resource is available from Panorama .
• Peer Connections: Connecting students to peers is an effective strategy for improving attendance. Familiar Faces in High School , as well as a similar elementary-level study , found that the presence of consistent classmates from one year to the next is associated with reduced chronic absence and truancy. Schools can prioritize connections to peers through scheduling, cohort design, and classroom practices. Schools can also create peer mentoring. For example, a study of Peer Group Connection (PGC) , showed attendance improvements in low-income urban and rural communities throughout the U.S.
• Success Mentoring: A 2013 study conducted in New York City found that pairing chronically absent students with a success mentor (an adult or peer who checked in three to five times a week) improved attendance by nine days (PDF). Multiyear research by The Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University shows that more time spent with a student success coach—essentially, an adult who helps with connectedness—is associated with improvements in attendance, academic and social and emotional outcomes.
• Intensive tutoring: Research shows that students receiving intensive tutoring are more likely to show up on the day of their regularly scheduled tutoring sessions . Such programs combine social connection with academic support.
• Engaging Expanded Learning Programs: Numerous studies show that students attending expanded learning programs have better attendance. Afterschool programs may be especially well positioned to connect students to peers, adults, engaging activities, and creating a sense of belonging.