School Guidance

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How can schools improve attendance and engagement?

Improving attendance may involve a team approach. With support from districts, school leaders may be able to improve attendance and engagement by taking the following actions, as outlined by Attendance Works (2023) :

1. Use a team approach for attendance and engagement
2. Encourage the team to:
   1. Organize a multi-tiered attendance strategy that begins with prevention and early intervention—including ensuring attention to positive conditions of learning—by promoting health, well-being, safety, family engagement, and student connectedness
   2. Drive with Data
   3. Identify the factors that affect attendance and engagement through direct engagement with students and families
   4. Mobilize everyone—families, students, school staff, and external partners—to address attendance
   5. Determine if the interventions are making a difference

1. Use a Team Approach for Attendance and Engagement

A data-driven, team approach is key to improving attendance and engagement. Teams may be composed differently depending on their size, location, or grade span but their purpose can be the same: to organize and facilitate a schoolwide attendance strategy and help to make it an integral component of the school’s plan to improve outcomes for all students.

While everyone can play a role to help students show up to class every day, the leadership role of a building administrator is key. Principals and school leaders may be uniquely positioned to help their school community adopt a comprehensive, tiered approach to improving attendance that fits with their overall goal of promoting academic achievement. The team could include:

• A leader with decision-making authority such as the principal or assistant principal.
• People with specific expertise about interventions or understanding of particular student groups. Such staff may include school nurses, front office staff, teachers, paraprofessional staff, child welfare and attendance specialists, counselors, social workers, community schools coordinators, and/or expanded learning providers. (Research shows the impact of expanded learning on attendance .) Depending on the demographics of your school, you may also want to connect with your McKinney-Vento or foster youth liaison.
• People who understand the perspectives of the various student groups. Consider adding staff who speak the home languages of students and families, paraprofessionals who assist students with disabilities or afterschool program directors. Parent leaders can also contribute insights and knowledge. Teams could incorporate input from families, students, and the community. They can also identify student or family leaders who can participate in strategy discussions and/or find opportunities to consult with existing parent or student groups.

The work of attendance can be embedded into an existing school team and does not necessarily need to be a new team. School teams, particularly in larger districts, could map what teams currently exist in the school and determine if the work of facilitating a schoolwide attendance strategy can be incorporated into another team such as a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) or Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support (PBIS) team. (Note that some districts may mandate a particular approach in all schools.)

Teams may wish to meet at least every two weeks to identify students as early as possible who are struggling with attendance. For some schools with high levels of chronic absence, schools may find that weekly meetings may be needed.

2. Encourage the Team to Perform Key Functions, which may include:

A. Organize a multi‑tiered attendance strategy that begins with prevention and early intervention.

Research supports that most students respond to universal, schoolwide strategies (Tier 1), while others benefit from more targeted (Tier 2) or intensive (Tier 3) interventions (Attendance Works 2019 (PDF)). Schools may integrate this strategy into the School Plan for Student Achievement—Tier 1 strategies aim to improve attendance and engagement broadly, with targeted supports layered in for students who need additional help.

Accessible Text for the Multi-Tiered Attendance Pyramid

A prevention-oriented approach may help provide positive conditions for learning that motivate students to attend. Students may be more likely to show up when they and their families feel that school is a physically and emotionally healthy and safe place; experience a sense of belonging, connection, and support; find lessons to be academically challenging and engaging; and are taught by adults who have the emotional competence to support them. Positive relationships with adults and peers can therefore be an important factor in attendance (Attendance Works 2023 ).

Accessible Text for Positive Conditions for Learning Lead to Students Being Engaged and Attending Regularly

Tiers of the Attendance Pyramid

Source: Attendance Works

Examples of tiered attendance interventions can be found at the Attendance Works Chronic Absence: Examples of Tiered Practices web page . School teams may wish to list their existing attendance interventions and identify gaps in support. Here is an example of a completed attendance tiered interventions form (PDF). Schools that are implementing MTSS may wish to integrate their attendance interventions into their MTSS framework. For an example, please see the Orange County Department of Education MTSS Connecting the Dots web page .

B. Drive with data:

Schools may begin by examining chronic absence data (see Key Sources and Uses for Attendance Data). Ideally this data is made available to schools by districts and, in some cases, county offices of education can offer such support. The earlier attendance problems are identified, the sooner schools can reach out to identify and address barriers to getting to school before absences add up and before a student has lost out academically (see Attendance Works Using Chronic Absence Data to Improve Conditions for Learning (PDF) [2019] and Toolkits: Use Data for Intervention and Support web page [2023a]).

• School-level data: At the school level, looking at chronic absence trends may help. How has your school’s chronic absence level changed? How does it compare to other schools in your district or with the state average? You may wish to work with your district team to set attendance improvement goals that align with the LCAP and that are included in the School Improvement Plan.
• Disaggregated data: What patterns do you see by grade level? By specific student groups, such as socioeconomically disadvantaged or Students with Disabilities, for example? In addition to noting which groups of students have higher or lower levels of absence, chronic absence data can also be used in combination with academic or behavior data to help assess how well specific programs or interventions are working or to identify systemic issues and barriers.
• Individual student data: Students who miss 10 percent of school at any point in the year may be headed off track academically. They have missed so much school it is likely affecting their opportunities to learn and thrive. Thus, teams may find it helpful to identify and intervene with students on the cusp of chronic absence (At-risk: missing 5–9 percent or Moderately chronically absent: missing 10–19 percent) (Attendance Works 2023b (PDF)).

A student’s prior history of chronic absence is highly predictive of future academic risk—research found that students who were chronically absent in one year had 5.5 times the odds of dropping out in the future (Attendance Works and Utah Education Policy Center 2012 (PDF)), and prior absence has been shown to predict lower academic performance at the start of the next school year (NWEA 2024 (PDF)).

C. Identify the factors that affect student attendance:

Many factors can affect student attendance. Understanding why students are absent may be the first step to effectively addressing chronic absenteeism. Before your team selects an intervention for support, you may find it helpful to first dig beneath the surface to uncover root causes for the absences —whether they are related to health, mental health, transportation, school climate, or family needs.

You may find it helpful to start by finding out directly from students and families about what helps them show up, what barriers to attendance they face, and what interventions would make a difference. You may wish to use qualitative data tools . Qualitative data may help collect meaningful insights about what may be driving absences in your school.

Here are examples:

• An environmental scan , which is an observation tool to identify school factors
• Empathy interviews: These involve targeted, one-on-one conversations with a small sample of people (i.e., students or parents/caregivers) to learn from their lived experience. One example is an interview template and video about empathy interview norms .
• Student focus groups: Focus groups are moderated discussions held with a small number of students that help to explore experiences and perspectives. The Sample Attendance Focus Group Protocol is a good example.
• Shadow a student: It may help to see school through a student’s eyes, identify opportunities to improve, and take action to create change at your school site. Sample toolkits may be available. One example is the Shadow a Student Challenge Toolkit (PDF).

By identifying what is truly getting in the way of attendance, one may be able to design more targeted, supportive, and sustainable solutions that meet the real needs of your students and families. Look for opportunities to engage students and families in collecting and analyzing data on barriers and solutions.

Most importantly, aligning interventions with the actual barriers students and families have identified may support efforts that are not only well intentioned but also effective. When solutions are grounded in lived experience, they may be more likely to remove obstacles and make a lasting impact on student attendance. You may find it helpful to review the strategies listed in the section for districts on family engagement and student connectedness , as well as interventions for student health and wellness and those found in the Attendance Playbook and its Guide . Schools may find they are able to make a significant difference by focusing on solutions that promote health, well-being, safety, family engagement, and student connectedness.

D. Mobilize everyone in the school community—families, school staff, and external partners—to address attendance:

Within the school building, everyone, including families, teachers, and students, has a role to play in improving attendance. Those who are closest to the problem—students, families, and teachers—can offer insights about why students miss school as well as co-create solutions. The school may wish to have a professional development plan that equips school staff and partners to address attendance and use existing meetings to promote attendance (such as parent–teacher conferences (PDF) or staff meetings). You may consider including staff who see students and families regularly. These may include bus drivers, front office staff, afterschool staff, cafeteria workers, and paraprofessionals. Remember to coordinate efforts with others working on individualized education program (IEP) or 504 plans.

Schools alone cannot address every barrier. The school team can also tap into the resources offered by their district or county school attendance review board (SARB), which brings in external partners. These partners may provide services to remove barriers, particularly for students needing more intensive Tier 3 interventions. External partners may also help expand the number of caring adults available to build positive relationships with students and families.

E. Determine if you are making a difference:

Results count. One may consider taking a closer look at whether students are better off as a result of your team’s efforts. Did you meet or exceed your school attendance goals? Did you improve attendance for individual students and, if so, what made the difference? Reach out to your district or county office of education for assistance if your team needs help with measuring improvements.

Quick Links to Other Sections of this Guidance

• Key Uses and Sources of Quantitative Attendance Data
• Resources Available to Improve Attendance and Engagement
• Sample Truancy Letter