States will be required to report chronic absenteeism rates for Title I schools, and school districts will be allowed to spend federal dollars on training to reduce absenteeism, under a sweeping education bill signed into law by President Obama on Thursday.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act or No Child Left Behind, represents the first time that federal education law specifically mentions this measure of attendance. Chronic absence differs from truancy in that it tracks both excused and unexcused absences.

Its inclusion reflects the increasing awareness in Washington and across the country that chronic absence is a key indicator for assessing school and student success.

via New Federal Education Law Includes Chronic Absence Tracking, Training – Attendance Works Attendance Works.

The federal government today took up the fight against chronic absence with a cross-sector initiative aimed at helping states, school districts and communities address the root causes of absenteeism. The Every Student, Every Day initiative will harness support from the White House and the U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development and Justice.

“It’s common-sense – students have to be in their classrooms to learn, yet too many of our children, and most often our most vulnerable children, are missing almost a month or more of school every year,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan in a statement, who announced the initiative at a Washington, D.C. elementary school after an awards ceremony honoring students with improved attendance.

via Federal Officials Launch Chronic Absence Initiative – Attendance Works Attendance Works.

By Jane Meredith Adams

Elementary school absenteeism remains “persistently high” in California, but more schools are tracking absences and working to address the root problems that keep students out of classrooms, California Attorney General Kamala Harris said Wednesday as she released new statewide attendance data.

Attendance reflects student health – physical, emotional and behavioral – and for several years, Harris has declared chronic absenteeism an urgent problem affecting student achievement, dropout rates and crime. On Wednesday, she revived her plea for a statewide attendance database that would help districts identify students, particularly those who move from one district to another, who are in need of intervention to resolve health issues, transportation problems and school suspensions that can cause chronic absenteeism.

via Chronic student absentee rate remains high, but tracking improves | EdSource.

California’s Attorney General Kamala Harris this week delivered an impressive report on absenteeism that exposes the scope of the problem across the state but also demonstrates the progress that districts are making toward addressing this problem.

The report, In School On Track 2015, calculates that an estimated 230,000 California elementary students are chronically absent, missing 18 or more days in the 2014-15 school year. That’s 8 percent of elementary students.

via California Report Shows Scope of Absenteeism, Progress in Tracking Data – Attendance Works Attendance Works.

Two years ago, the federal government took an enormous step toward providing the first national data on chronic absenteeism. The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) asked the school districts it surveys to report how many students are missing 15 or more days in a school year. The data will be released for the first time next spring, providing a font of information about the who, what and where of chronic absence. We can’t wait to dig into it.

But we want more. OCR is asking for input by Monday, Aug. 3, on its Civil Rights Data Collection program, and Attendance Works is submitting these comments. We encourage you to submit comments as well on this link. Feel free to lift any or all of the comments we’ve developed.

Chiefly we want OCR to change its definition of chronic absence from missing 15 days to missing 10 percent of the school year. There are several reasons.

via Change the Way the Feds Collect Attendance Data – Attendance Works Attendance Works.

Why do teenagers miss so much school? And what can we do to get them to come back to class?

Get Schooled, a nonprofit that connects to thousands of students across the country, decided to find out. In late July, the group conducted an e-mail survey of 15,000 students active on the Get Schooled website. More than 1,300 students from 46 states responded, a mix of age groups and racial and ethnic backgrounds. Only a quarter of the students reported missing more than five days in the year.

The reasons they gave for missing school were enlightening:

1. I wasn’t feeling well: 79%
2. I had obligations with my family: 40%
3. I didn’t feel like it: 21%
4. I didn’t do my homework/study for a test: 17
5. I didn’t have a ride: 10%

via Why Do Teens Miss School? – Attendance Works Attendance Works.

Two years ago, the federal government took an enormous step toward providing the first national data on chronic absenteeism. The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) asked the school districts it surveys to report how many students are missing 15 or more days in a school year. The data will be released for the first time next spring, providing a font of information about the who, what and where of chronic absence. We can’t wait to dig into it.

But we want more. OCR is asking for input by Monday, Aug. 3, on its Civil Rights Data Collection program, and Attendance Works is submitting these comments. We encourage you to submit comments as well on this link. Feel free to lift any or all of the comments we’ve developed.

Chiefly we want OCR to change its definition of chronic absence from missing 15 days to missing 10 percent of the school year. There are several reasons.

via Change the Way the Feds Collect Attendance Data – Attendance Works Attendance Works.

Did you know that chronic absence affects one in 10 children in kindergarten and first grade nationwide? And that early childhood education can lay a foundation for better attendance in the years ahead?

Start Strong, a free webinar from the Attendance Awareness Campaign at 2 p.m. ET on May 13, will explore early absenteeism and offer strategies for helping our youngest learners build the essential skill of showing up on time every day.

We know that children who are chronically absent in kindergarten and first grade are much less likely to read proficiently by the end of third grade and are more likely to have poor attendance in later grades.

Early childhood programs, schools and community partners can give young children a strong start. Speakers from Attendance Works and local communities will tell how they are using data, reaching out to families to offer support in overcoming common health challenges and developmental delays, and educating parents about the benefits of engaging programs and instruction in the early grades.

via Start Strong: 5/13 Webinar on Attendance in the Early Years – Attendance Works Attendance Works.

Paige Swan could see the results of his attendance push when he asked all the students with perfect attendance to come to the front of the auditorium: 103 students rose and stood proudly beside the principal at the June assembly.

Then he asked for students with one or two missed days to come forward. Most of the student body at his rural California elementary school was standing at the front of room. In a single year, the average daily attendance rate at Smith River Elementary School rose from 94 to 98 percent. And the chronic absence rate fell from about 8 percent to below 6 percent.

“We’ve made it a school-wide priority,” Swan says. “We had a plan, we followed the plan, and at the end of the school year we analyzed the plan. Our plan worked.”

via Principal Spotlight: Building a Culture of Attendance – Attendance Works Attendance Works.

Principal Sarah Harris knows how to deliver the message on school attendance. She starts at the back-to-school breakfast the week before school begins at Vance Village Elementary School in New Britain, Connecticut. She emphasizes the theme again in her weekly robocalls to families and in the school’s monthly newsletter. She asks teachers to stress good attendance in personalized messages they record monthly for their own students. And she asks fifth graders to mention it they when make the daily announcements.

Messaging is just one piece of Harris’s approach to reducing chronic absence, an approach that brought the proportion of chronically absent students down from 24 to 7 percent in a single year. Amid the incentives, the data analysis and the mentoring lies a core principle: “Teachers must have the relationship to children and their families to reinforce why it matters to come to school every day,” she says.

via Principal Spotlight: Positive Messaging for Better Attendance – Attendance Works Attendance Works.

All high-poverty schools are not alike. Some manage to succeed despite a high number of students who qualify for free and reduced meals, while others struggle miserably. Some have decent attendance rates, while other see more than a third of their students missing a month of school every year.

A new report by The Center for New York City Affairs at The New School looks closely at the city’s schools and documents the risk factors that plague struggling schools. A Better Picture of Poverty: What Chronic Absenteeism and Risk Load Reveal About NYC’s Lowest-Income Elementary Schools also identifies improving attendance as a key strategy to turning around these schools.

via New York Study Shows Nexis Between Chronic Absence and Poverty « Attendance Works Attendance Works.