Developing School-wide Systems that Boost Attendance ATTENDANCE SUPPORT SESSION 3 Developing School-wide Systems that Boost Attendance

“By connecting student behaviors to their effects on learning in the classroom, attendance outreach allows the school to express and reiterate its high academic expectations for every student.” —“Attendance Outreach: Connecting To Student Lives” Jobs for the Future http://www.eskolta.org/catalog/files/WBCHS%20Transfer%20School%20Book.pdf 2

Objectives: Map the roles, locations, and opportunities within a school that allow staff to better address absences as a whole school community. Identify individual ways to promote attendance and make connections with colleagues to accomplish these together.

Sample Attendance System Map: Greeting at the door every day Morning check-in call or conversation Daily personal connection Home outreach (with positive parent-student relationship) Conveying effects on graduation Meaningful feedback Future-oriented discussions Peer or extracurricular connections outside of class Noticing patterns together Read the set of nine practices that help students feel more visible and in turn improve their attendance. Where did staff at West Brooklyn Community High School address these practices through their school-wide attendance outreach? How might they plan support for the areas not addressed in their map? 1

Discuss Connections: Which practices are most commonly found at your school? Which are less common? 2

Brainstorm Strengths and Weaknesses: For each of the nine practices: Where does your school have strong routines in place for addressing them? Which may be areas for growth? Which practices do you think would make a difference for your students? 3

Create a Map: Using the columns on the Attendance System Map, write out ideas for the roles, locations, and opportunities to implement these practices. For additional practices, use the blank rows on the second page. 4

Plan Based on Individual Roles: What’s your role within this system to address attendance? What is one small change you could make to help your students improve attendance? How will you make it happen? Is your change dependent on changes others in the building would need to make? If so, what would you need from others to be successful? 5

Share: What is one thing you have planned to do to contribute to your school’s systemic approach to positive attendance practices? What connections did you hear in others’ responses? What opportunities for collaboration emerged? 6

Learning Wrap-Up Reflect on what you learned today. How do your takeaways compare to the session’s Learning Objectives? How were these objectives addressed today? LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Map the roles, locations, and opportunities within a school that allow staff to better address absences as a whole school community. Identify individual ways to promote attendance and make connections with colleagues to accomplish these together. 7

What’s next? Explore strategies for noticing and re-engaging students who might feel invisible Learn more about data-driven strategies for improving attendance Learn more about the school systems that effectively support student attendance Plan individual contributions to a school-wide system for promoting student attendance Develop a resource to support attendance outreach to individual students as a counselor or teacher 8