2025 ACSA Every Child Counts Symposium

Chronic absenteeism is a major issue, both nationally and in California specifically. In California, chronic absenteeism rates, or the percentage of students missing 10% of school days, was at 25% (a decade ago it was 12%). We also know that student attendance rose as the top priority and challenge reported by districts, in PowerSchool’s most recent annual Education Focus Report, in which over 1600 educators were surveyed. This is not surprising. Student attendance is often the first and clearest indicator of engagement and readiness to learn. Regular attendance is essential for students to access the full spectrum of educational opportunities and interventions available within a school's MTSS. In California, lack of student attendance also has major financial consequences for school districts. Fortunately, many districts are seeing gains in attendance by following key fundamentals that are applicable to every district’s MTSS efforts. In this presentation, we will talk about: • How the objective of increasing attendance can be effectively incorporated into your MTSS framework, as opposed to being treated as a separate initiative. • Research on the barriers that prevent students from attending school regularly and how MTSS and strong data driven practices and protocols can be used to identify and address barriers. • Practices for addressing attendance across the continuum of support, starting first with practices that can be implemented universally. • 2023 Research from John Hopkins University on how Attendance Intervention technology can be used to address chronic absenteeism. • Lastly, we will discuss the criticality of family engagement as the cornerstone of effective MTSS implementation Regular communication with families about their children's progress and the support available can help alleviate some of the external barriers to attendance. In closing, while improving attendance is a critical first step in ensuring students can access the instruction and support, they need, a well-implemented MTSS creates an environment that encourages regular attendance. Schools that recognize and leverage this interplay are better equipped to create sustainable improvements in both areas, creating an environment where students are present, engaged, and supported in all aspects of their education. Key Takeaways: 1. Understanding the barriers that prevent students from attending school regularly is crucial to effectively supporting students. These barriers can range from physical or mental health issues to transportation problems to lack of engagement or motivation. Addressing these barriers requires a comprehensive approach, where schools can leverage their MTSS framework to identify and mitigate these issues. In addition, a well implemented MTSS leads to stronger attendance, creating a bi-directionality effect in which attendance leads to students receiving the support they need, and well implemented MTSS leads to stronger attendance. 2. Understand the role technology can play in helping to increase student attendance and that there are some tasks that technology is better suited to perform than humans in our quest to improve student attendance. There are other responsibilities that should be educator led. We will differentiate the two. 3. Highlight the importance of involving families as key partners in effectively addressing chronic absenteeism and review research on effective communication strategies about attendance with families.