Chronic Absence SIG Guidelines April 8 FINAL

8/9/2019 Chronic Absence SIG Guidelines April 8 FINAL

1/4

The Chronic Absence and Attendance Partnership

Dear LEA

Chronic absence is a critical issue to consider for any school seeking toimprove its academic achievement and any district committed toreducing drop-out. It is an essential element to consider as youdevelop plans for the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program. Thistoolkit provides background information and resources to help youunderstand why chronic absence matters for SIG applicants and whatyou can do to address poor attendance as you develop your plans for

turning around underperforming schools.

I. Why Chronic Absence Matters for Developing Your SIGapplication?

According to the U.S. Department of Education, performance of participating schools in the School Improvement Grant program will beassessed using nine leading indicators, including the collection of student attendance rates. As part of addressing attendance, schoolsshould examine data on chronic absence (missing 10% or more of

school over the course of a year for any reason), not just school wideattendance figures. High levels of chronic absence can be easilymasked by average daily attendance or truancy figures. (SeeAttendance Counts Power Point.)

Yet, chronic absenceat any ageis one of the best known earlywarning indicators of school drop out. The impact also goes beyond thestudents missing school. If a significant number of children in aclassroom or school are chronically absent, it can adversely affect allstudents by slowing the pace of instruction and lowering levels of state

funding. Regardless of which of the four intervention models chosenunder the School Improvement Grant program, a school district shouldknow whether the lowest achieving students or schools are sufferingfrom high levels of chronic absence so they can design appropriateinterventions.

Improving achievement requires knowing if students are struggling


2/4

academically because: a) they arent in the classroom enough tobenefit from the instruction, or b) they regularly attend but whathappens in the classroom isnt helping them achieve. In addition, if aschool has a significant chronic absence problem and understands thefactors or barriers preventing students from attending schoolsuch aslack of health care, poor transportation, fears of community violence,or boredom with the curriculumthey can use that information todetermine how to proceed, especially by working with families and inpartnership with community agencies that offer relevant resources(afterschool, preK, health services, etc.)

II. What Can Be Done to Address Chronic Absence?

Addressing chronic absence requires:

a) Using attendance data to find out if chronic absence is a problemin your school or district and if any particular classes, grades, orsub-populations of children are most affected. This school datatemplate (embed link to sample school attendance report)provides you with one approach to analyzing your attendancedata. You can modify Type of Absence codes to reflect localpolicy and practice.

b) If chronic absence is a problem, identify the most significantcontributing factors. Asking students and parents about barriersto attending school regularly is especially key. These guidelines(embed link to Contrib. Factors doc) suggest ways of identifyingkey factors contributing to poor attendance in your school .

c) Working with families and community agencies to 1) create aculture of good attendance among all students and their parents,and 2) reach out to students struggling with poor attendance andtheir families to connect them to resources that can helpovercome barriers to attendance, and 3) enable students tomake up for lost instructional time due to absences. Weespecially encourage schools to consider how they can drawupon the assets and skills of afterschool providers since they areespecially well-positioned to partner with schools to address theneeds of struggling students. We know that 85% of the schools


3/4

identified as eligible for SIG in California have some form of stateor federally funded afterschool program. This self-assessmenttool (embed link) can help you crafting a school plan to improveattendance.

d) Where does this fit with the SIG application? Regardless of thetype of school intervention model selected, SIG applicants shoulduse data on chronic absence to inform how they:

Analyze the needs of each school to determine an appropriateintervention ( If chronic absence levels are high, then anintervention should help to improve school attendance)

Align other resources with the interventions ( Data on whichstudents are chronically absent can be used to target resources to those students who might need them most);

Modify practices or policies, if necessary, to enableparticipating schools to implement the interventions fully andeffectively ( Student level attendance data can provideimmediate and timely feedback on whether students and their families are being engaged by the new practices or

policies) ; and

Sustain the reforms after the funding period ends(Documenting improvements in attendance due to thereforms helps to justify sustaining efforts since it reveals they are helping to increase funding allocations)

We hope you find this overview, materials and bibliography (embedlink to Bibliography) useful to your efforts to ensure all students inCalifornia an equal opportunity to learn, succeed and achieve inschool. We also welcome your feedback about whether you found thistoolkit useful and how it might be improved. Please use this feedback

form (embed link to feedback form).

The Chronic Absence and Attendance Partnership (CAAP)

Attendance CountsCalifornia Family Resource Association

Education Trust West*Fight Crime: Invest in Kids


4/4

*California PTA *California School Health CentersAssociation*Children Now

CaliforniaLeague of Women Voters of California* Partnership for Childrenand YouthPICO California *

Public Advocates*

*Indicates that I do not yet have confirmation to add yourorganizations name to this letter.

Documents

Chronic Absence SIG Guidelines April 8 FINAL