Effective leadership creates the vision for high expectations, community partnerships, quality resources, and caring relationships. This section underscores the goal of an effective SARB, which is to provide the support students need to succeed in school.
While many factors contribute to success in school, regular school attendance and appropriate school behavior are fundamental to learning. Problems in either area provide clear warning signs indicating intervention and support are needed. When systems are not in place to identify and respond to these signs as soon as possible, students exhibiting poor attendance and/or behavior are likely to become more disengaged (or hostile), until they eventually disappear from school entirely, or are expelled.
The California State Legislature responded to the role irregular attendance and poor behavior play in lost learning, school dropout, and juvenile delinquency with a number of laws written in the early 1970s. In 1974, the SARBs were introduced in California Education Code (EC) sections 48320–48326
, as a part of a system of interventions intended to make maximum use of school district and community resources to reengage students, improve graduation rates, and divert minors away from the justice system.
In essence, a SARB is a multidisciplinary team, composed of representatives from a broad array of youth and family service agencies. The goal is to create a SARB with expertise on the full spectrum of needs that youth and families encounter, together with a menu of resources necessary to make a difference. To foster this kind of collaboration EC Section 48321
provides the following membership pool for School Attendance Review Boards:
- A parent.
- A representative of school districts.
- A representative of the county probation department.
- A representative of the county welfare department.
- A representative of the county superintendent of schools.
- A representative of law enforcement agencies.
- A representative of community-based youth service centers.
- A representative of school guidance personnel.
- A representative of child welfare and attendance personnel.
- A representative of school or county health care personnel.
- A representative of school, county, or community mental health personnel.
- A representative of the county district attorney’s office.
- A representative of the county public defender’s office.
- Other persons or group representatives shall be appointed by the county board of education.
While many people are familiar with SARB’s function as a "hearing panel," highly effective SARB programs develop three layers of support to improve student attendance, behavior, and learning:
- Prevention efforts focused on building positive school environments and improved school connectedness.
- Early identification and immediate intervention to re-engage students with poor attendance (truancy or chronic absenteeism) and/or poor behavior.
- Intensive intervention with students and families appropriate for attendance or behavior issues that are severe or entrenched.
It is important to note here that the stance of every school employee and SARB member should adopt when working with students and their families is one that emphasizes caring, compassion, and partnership.
EC Section 48290
requires that parents and/or students who continually fail to comply with the laws related to school attendance, and who do not respond to school-based efforts to correct the problem, be referred to a SARB. A SARB is authorized to direct truant or recalcitrant students and their parents or guardians to use school and community resources it specifies. If the problem persists, EC Section 48291
requires the SARB to refer the case for prosecution.
The focus through the process should be on intervention, re-engagement, and support.
Accountability and Opportunity for School Attendance Review Boards
Enacted in 2013, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) made dramatic changes to the method of funding for the local educational agencies (LEAs). Under the LCFF, all LEAs are required to prepare a Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP), describing the actions they will take to accomplish annual goals they establish for all students with special attention to English Learners, children in foster care, and low income students.
Each LCAP must include specific activities to address the state priorities identified in EC Section 52060(d)
. While positive student attendance is a factor influencing all the priority areas, two factors stand out as being closely aligned with the mission of School Attendance Review Boards:
Student Engagement: As measured by all the following, as applicable:
- School attendance rates.
- Chronic absenteeism rates.
- Middle school dropout rates.
- High school dropout rates.
- High school graduation rates.
School Climate: As measured by all the following, as applicable:
- Student suspension rates.
- Student expulsion rates.
- Other local measures, including surveys of students, parents, and teachers on the sense of safety and school connectedness.
The community oriented, multi-disciplinary, multi-agency make up of local SARBs makes them uniquely qualified to provide input into the development of goals and action plans to address LCAP priorities.