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The Baltimore City Student The Baltimore City Student Attendance Work GroupAttendance Work Group
Coalition for Community Schools 2010 National Forum
Building Innovative Partnerships for Student Success
Thursday April 8, 2010
A Collaborative Effort A Collaborative Effort
Work Group Co-Chairs:Jonathan Brice, Executive Director of Student Support - Baltimore City Public Schools, Sabrina Sutton, Special Assistant to the Mayor, and Jane Sundius, Director of Education and Youth – OSI Baltimore
Key Partners: Over 100 representatives of public schools, city agencies, state agencies, universities, foundations, public interest groups, program providers and student organizations.
The Baltimore City Student The Baltimore City Student Attendance Work GroupAttendance Work Group
The Work Group’s charge is to investigate reasons for the high rates of student absence from school.
Identify policies, practices and public, private and community resources necessary to dramatically increase the number of children who attend school every day.
Why Focus on Student Attendance?Why Focus on Student Attendance?
• Children’s attendance levels decline, on average, as students progress through school
• Chronic absence as early as kindergarten is predictive of future chronic absence and lower academic achievement without interventions
• Poor student attendance predicts high school dropout rates
Community and School ResponseCommunity and School Response
Baltimore City Public Schools Provide clear, targeted and consistent messaging about
how to measure attendance, why it is important, and expected outcomes.
Become advocates for the use of attendance as a respond to indicator within City Schools and ensure that it informs decision making and the response framework.
Individual Public School Leaders Ensure standard expectation is every student attends school
every day & when a student is absent there is a school level response beginning with a call home.
Monitor and use all attendance measures to inform school attendance plan: chronic absence (early predictor), truancy (legal), high attenders (tipping point), and attendance rate (Adequate Yearly Progress).
Collecting and Monitoring Data On Collecting and Monitoring Data On Chronic absenceChronic absence
Attendance is tracked daily and in secondary schools by class in Baltimore City
Attendance data is uploaded to the principal’s dashboard weekly
Principals have access to an alert list of students on track to becoming chronically absent, a list of students who were chronically absent in the prior school year, and the school’s chronic absence rate as compared to its own rate in the prior school year
The role of Community Schools In Helping to The role of Community Schools In Helping to Address Chronic Absence Address Chronic Absence
Agree that an accountability outcome will be improved student attendanceThrough a team approach create attendance targets based on the data either for the school as a whole or for sub populations of studentsDetermine the number of students that Community School providers will work to serveDetermine how the work will be measuredRecord Community Schools efforts to improve attendance
Tiered Strategies to Improve Tiered Strategies to Improve AttendanceAttendance
Tier 1 – Universal Strategies (for all students)• Establish a school-going culture including. response to
each absence, welcoming back absent students, communicating the importance of regular attendance to the home.
• Utilize Global Connect or make phone calls home after each absence
• Offer classroom attendance incentives for improved good attendance
• Utilize school attendance incentives such as attendance ceremonies, special trips for high attenders and rewarding parents whose children regularly attend
Tiered Strategies to Improve Tiered Strategies to Improve AttendanceAttendance
Tier 2 – Intervention Strategies (for students who miss 5 or more days of school)
• Refer a student with attendance problems to the SST including all of the adults who touch the child’s life (e.g. school nurse, after school providers, and the community schools coordinator.)
• Assign special activities to increase at risk student’s feeling of belonging
• Develop attendance plan with student & parents• Provide the family with an alarm clock• Refer to programs like Truancy Court or B-SMART
Tiered Strategies to Improve Tiered Strategies to Improve AttendanceAttendance
Tier 3 – Recovery Strategies (for students who are missing at least 10% of their days on role)
• Involve external partners in the provision of needed services such as mental health providers
• Conduct a home visit
• Refer the student to the Attendance Office
District Systems Reforms Affecting District Systems Reforms Affecting AttendanceAttendance
• Reforming school suspension policy • Reducing the number of school
transitions by creating schools grades k-8 and 6-12
• Increasing student and family options by creating and supporting innovation, contract, charter and transformation schools
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Results to Date Results to Date
• % Missing 20 or More Days of SchoolSCHOOL LEVEL % Chronic
Absence
2006-7
% Chronic Absence
2007-8
% Chronic Absence
2008-9
ELEMENTARY GRADES 14.0 12.4 11.3MIDDLE GRADES 33.7 27.0 18.6HIGH SCHOOL 43.5 42.1 42.0ALL CITY SCHOOLS 28.7 25.6 23.2
Results To Date Results To Date
% Missing Fewer than 5 DaysSCHOOL TYPE % High
Attenders
2006-7
% High Attenders
2007-8
% High Attenders
2008-9
ELEMENTARY GRADES 35.8 36.1 36.7
MIDDLE GRADES 21.2 26.8 33.1HIGH SCHOOLS 16.0 18.1 17.1ALL CITY SCHOOLS 25.6 28.0 26.7
ReflectionsReflections
1. Everything matters a little bit.
2. So little attention has been paid to attendance that there are many no- or low-cost interventions that can be put in place.
3. Beware of tendency to solve chronic absence with punitive action
4. Pay attention to punitive policies that reduce attendance
5. Big improvements especially in low performing districts require performance rubrics that include attendance measures not just standardized test scores.
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The Baltimore City Student The Baltimore City Student Attendance Work GroupAttendance Work Group
Contact:Sue FothergillStudent Attendance Work Group [email protected]
