1. Attendance & Truancy Among Virginia Students
Module 2: Frameworks for Reducing Chronic Absence
Welcome to Module 2 of a twelve part module series entitled Attendance and Truancy Among Virginia Students, a collaboration between the Virginia Department of Education and Attendance Works, a national and state initiative that promotes better policy and practice around school attendance. This session is entitled Frameworks for Reducing Chronic Absence. Please note that there is a Facilitator/Participant companion guide for each session which is located on the Virginia Department of Education Web site. The facilitator/participant companion guide allows viewers, whether working individually or in a group, to follow each session and answer reflection questions and create a working document to address the critical issues related to attendance and truancy in schools, divisions, and communities.
As the facilitator you should make sure to set the stage for the group. Thank them for being there and give them an overview for the purpose of gathering this group. Introduce yourself and your team and share with them the goal and expectations for your time together, such as the school division has determined to update its strategies for combatting absenteeism.
Introductions: For smaller groups invite each person to introduce themselves. For larger groups rather than have individual introductions you can organize groups of people by asking people to stand up based on categories such as school superintendents, the heads of student services, principal, teacher, social worker, etc. based on the appropriate categories for your school division.
For the Guide:
Presentation Description
Module two describes frameworks and strategies for reducing chronic absence.
Facilitation
Have the participants review the module and reflections. Each reflection is designed to help participants further their understanding and learning of key concepts, frameworks, and strategies for reducing chronic absence.

2. The Purpose
This PowerPoint serves as No. 2 in a series of modules designed to equip Virginia school divisions to reduce truancy and absenteeism.
This module provides a framework and overview of key strategies for reducing chronic absence.
Slide narration:
This learning module is the second in a series of modules designed to equip Virginia school divisions and schools with strategies, frameworks, materials and resources to help increase attendance and reduce chronic absence. This training lays the foundation for the other subsequent trainings.
Facilitator: Review the purpose of the module with the participants.

3. Today’s Agenda Learning goals review
A review of what is chronic absence
School and system strategies for reducing chronic absence
Attendance activity, reflection and homework
Narrative: Today’s session includes a review of the definition of chronic absence and school strategies for reducing chronic absence.
Facilitator: Review the agenda with your audience.

4. Module 2 Learning Goals
Educators will receive an overview of frameworks for reducing chronic absence.
Educators will learn five evidence-based strategies for reducing chronic absence.
Educators will learn how to organize attendance strategies in a tiered system of support.
Educators will learn the key ingredients for sustainable, systemic reductions in chronic absence.
Facilitator: Educators will receive an overview of frameworks for reducing chronic absence, learn five evidence-based strategies for reducing chronic absence, learn how to organize attendance strategies in a tiered system of supports, and learn the key ingredients for sustainable, systemic reductions in chronic absence.

5. Warm Up
Remember a time that you helped a student or a school improve attendance.
What made the situation hard to address?
What helped you to assist the student or school?
Slide narration/guide: Think for a minute about a time when you helped a student or school improve attendance. What challenges did you face? What helped you make progress with the student or school? Take a moment to reflect on these questions and take notes and/or discuss if you are in a group.
Facilitator: You’ll need to decide the best way to warm up your group. Do you have people working in teams at tables? Or is the session audience style? Depending on how people are grouped in the room will determine the best way to facilitate the warm up. You’ll want people to talk among themselves and answer the two questions on the slide. Once the group has had about 10 minutes to discuss, bring them back to a full group interaction. Depending on the size of the group there are different options to report out:
For individual learners invite them to reflect on the two questions and write down a response.
If the participants are working in groups, invite each group to identify a recorder and a reporter. Have each team report their responses to each of the questions.
If there is a large group sitting audience-style, ask the participants to pair and share their responses to the questions. Invite feedback popcorn-style asking for a few responses for each question and asking the larger audience if they agree.
If possible have someone document what is shared on chart paper or white board.

6. Review: What is Chronic Absence?
Chronic absence is defined as missing 10% or more of school for any reason.
Excused Absences
Unexcused absences
Suspensions
Chronic Absence
Chronic absence is different from truancy (unexcused absences only) or average daily attendance (how many students show up to school each day).
Slide narration: As we learned in Module 1, chronic absence means a student is missing 10% or more of the school year for any reason.
Unlike truancy, which counts only unexcused absences, chronic absence looks at excused absences and absences due to suspensions as well.
Chronic absence is a measure of lost instructional time for any reason.
Facilitator- Reflection:
In module 1 you learned that when students are chronically absent they are less likely to be successful in school and achieve critical educational milestones. How has your view of absenteeism changed now that you know about chronic absence and how absences for any reason can add up over time?

7. Find Out Why Students Are Chronically Absent
Myths
Absences are only a problem if they are unexcused
OK to miss a day here or there
Attendance only matters in later grades
PreK and K is seen as day care not learning
Different values take priority
Barriers
Chronic disease (asthma) or lack of health/dental care
Caring for siblings or other family members
Unmet basic needs: transp., housing, food clothes, etc.
Trauma
No safe path to school
High suspension rates
Aversion
Academic struggles
Being teased or bullied
Poor school climate, disproportionate school discipline, or unsafe school
Parents had negative school experience
Disengage-ment
Lack of engaging and relevant instruction
More exciting to be with peers out of school vs. in school
No meaningful relationships with adults in school
When looking at why students are chronically absent, the reasons for the absences may be broken down into four categories,
Myths, which could include a parent’s belief that “absences are only a problem if they are unexcused,” or “attendance only matters in later grades.
Barriers, which could include chronic disease or lack of health or dental care.
Aversion, which could include academic struggles or a student being bullied.
And 4. Disengagement, which includes the lack of engaging instruction or meaningful relationships within the school.
Take a moment to look at categories and reflect or discuss on how they apply with the students that you have served. The four categories will be explored more in depth in later sessions.

8. Evidence-based School Strategies for Creating a Culture of Attendance
Slide narrative:
We know schools and communities can understand why kids are missing school and turn attendance around when they implement these five strategies with fidelity. How schools carry them out can be tailored to their own realities and strengths.
The first strategy, A, is recognizing good and improved attendance – To be clear, recognizing good and improved attendance goes beyond providing perfect attendance awards for a semester or year. We need to be sure that the incentives for attendance are attainable for many students and include recognizing students and their families when their attendance improves. Module 8 covers recognizing good and improved attendance.
The second strategy, B, is to Engage Students and Parents/Families to improve attendance, and can include incorporating activities into parent and student events and assemblies that help to communicate the importance of attendance and how easily absences can add up. Module 6 covers parent and student engagement activities.
The third strategy, C, “Monitoring attendance data and practice” happens through a team process. A team can be created or a school can tap an existing team that monitors student data to pay attention to chronic absence as an early warning indicator. The team should look at attendance trends and identify patterns of absences, along with identifying individual students who are missing 10% of their days or just two days a month. Module 3 covers the attendance team process more deeply.
As soon as a student becomes chronically absent it is important to “provide personalized early outreach,” strategy number 4, which is “D.”. This is a moment that requires a human touch, a phone call home by a caring adult can help uncover whether there are issues that will contribute to a student’s continued absence. A personal touch allows the school to connect directly with the family and offer assistance if needed. Module 9 covers personalized early outreach more deeply.
The final strategy, E, “Developing programmatic responses to barriers” is both about working with individual families to develop solutions for barriers to attendance and about understanding which issues are impacting groups of students based on the data. For example does your school have higher rates of absence in kindergarten? Could that be because families are less aware of the important literacy and numeracy development that happens every day in school? Improving attendance is about creating population and individual student solutions to absenteeism. Module 10 covers developing programmatic responses to barriers more deeply.
Reflection:
In your school or in your division’s schools which of these five site-based strategies do you think is being implemented with fidelity? Which of these practices is not currently in place? What would it take to help schools implement the practice?
Additional information to include in the guide:

9. Improving attendance requires a tiered approach that begins with prevention
Intensive case management with coordination of public agency and legal response as needed
TIER III
Students who missed 20% or more of
school (severe chronic absence)
High Cost
Low Cost
Provide personalized early outreach
Meet with student/family to develop plan
Offer attendance Mentor/Buddy
TIER II
Students missing 10-19% (moderate chronic absence)
TIER I
All students
Recognize good and improved attendance
Educate & engage students and families
Monitor attendance data
Establish positive and welcoming school climate
Identify and address common attendance barriers
Slide narration:
Improving attendance requires a tiered approach beginning with universal and preventive strategies. The challenge is that too many schools and communities are failing to invest in the first two tiers of universal and preventive. More information on the Virginia Tiered System of Supports can be found on the Virginia Department of Education Web site. The five evidence-based strategies we just outlined help to ensure an investment in the bottom two tiers – recognizing good and improved attendance as well as parent and student engagement are part of universal approaches. Personalized early outreach ensures intervention happens early. Investing in these bottom tiers is both more effective and less costly. And, if schools don’t make that investment, the top of the pyramid easily becomes overwhelmed. Engaging parents to reduce chronic absence in tier 1 might include talking about attendance at back to school night and using a parent engagement activity to teach how absences can add up. Engaging parents in tier 2 moves from working with a group of parents to working with a family whose child is chronically absent. The activity could include calling the family when their child’s attendance improves to provide positive feedback. Does your school use a tiered response system for academic or behavioral interventions? What would it take to incorporate attendance data as part of the school’s tiered response system? If your school doesn’t have a tiered response system what would it take to help your school put one in place?
Reflection:
Does your school use a tiered response system for academic or behavioral interventions? What would it take to incorporate attendance data as part of the school’s tiered response system? If your school doesn’t have a tiered response system what would it take to help your school put one in place?
Additional information for the guide:

10. Tier I Interventions
Tier I: For all students and families, attendance is higher when schools:
Promote a sense of belonging, inclusiveness & connection among students and families.
Provide engaging learning.
Engage in restorative practice not punishment.
Help our most economically challenged families and students meet their basic needs.
Slide narration:
The first tier of the pyramid includes strategies for all students and families in the school.
Attendance is higher when schools:
Promote a sense of belonging, inclusiveness and connection to the school among students and families
Provide engaging learning
Engage in restorative practice not punishment
Help our most economically challenged families and students meet their basic needs
Reflection:
Statement: A positive school climate contributes to better student attendance. How do you feel when you are welcomed when you visit a school? What happened that made you feel that way?

11. Tier II Interventions
Tier II: Targeted interventions that remove identified barriers and increase positive connections that motivate improved attendance.
Who are the students and families in Tier II?
Students missing 10-20% of the prior or current school year for any reason.
Families experiencing some challenge. (e.g. chronic disease, job loss, divorce, etc.)
For which families is Tier II sufficient?
Families with barriers to school attendance who may not understand how to access support.
Families who see school as “the deliverer of bad news”.
Families who are more successful when there is a positive relationship with someone at the school.
Slide narration:
Tier 2 strategies are targeted interventions that remove identified barriers and increase positive connections that actually motivate improved attendance. Tier 2 strategies are in addition to Tier 1 strategies, not in lieu of, or in place of them. Tier 2 interventions are aimed at students who are missing 10 to 19 percent of the prior or current school year for any reason.
Tier 2 strategies benefit families with barriers to school attendance who may not understand how to access support, who view school in a negative light, or who thrive with a positive relationship with someone at the school.
Reflection:
Imagine a parent of a student in Tier 2. Who are they? What do they look like? What kind of barriers are they experiencing? Write down the description of who this person is. Given the reality of this parent, what do they need from you to help them successfully support their child’s improved attendance?

12. Tier III Interventions
Tier III provides intensive interventions, often from multiple agencies or specialists within a school district or community.
Who are families in Tier III?
Missing 20% or more of the prior or current school year.
Already involved in the system (child welfare, juvenile or criminal justices).
For which families is Tier III necessary?
Families who feel hopeless because of the barriers.
Families who are unable to experience success without intervention.
Families who have a negative relationship with school.
Families who require ongoing support for sustained success.
Slide narration:
Tier 3 strategies are intensive interventions, often from multiple agencies or specialists within a school district or community.
Who are families in Tier 3?
They include families of students who are missing 20% or more of the prior or current school year for any reason.
They also include families of students who are already involved in a system that places them at risk, such as child welfare or juvenile justice.
Tier 3 strategies become necessary for families who:
feel hopeless because of the barriers they face are unable to experience success without intervention.
have a negative relationship with school and require ongoing support for sustained success.

13. Who Can Help Families at Tier III?
School integrated service teams
Family resource centers
County Social Services
McKinney Vento representatives
Community schools
District team
Slide narration:
Agencies and partners that can help support tier three families include:
School integrated service teams,
Family resource centers,
Social Services,
McKinney Vento representatives,
Community school coordinators, and
District team
Who else can help to provide support to families in tier 3?
Reflection for this and previous slide:

14. A Quick Review: Attendance Levels Activity

15. Levels of Absenteeism Satisfactory Attendance At-Risk Chronic Absence
Missing less than 5% of school days
Missing between 6%-9% of school days
Missing 10% or more of school days
Slide narration:
Now we’re going to do a quick attendance activity to check in on key attendance concepts.
Here is a review.
Satisfactory attendance is when a student misses 5% or less of the school year.
At-Risk attendance is when a student misses between 6% - 9% of the school year.
Chronic absence is when a student misses 10% or more of the school year.

16. Your Turn
Satisfactory Attendance
At-Risk
Chronic Absence
Q: It’s the end of the first semester and 90 school days have gone by.
What does it mean for a student to be in the Satisfactory Attendance category?
A: Student has missed 4 or fewer school days (in other words, less than 4.5 days)
Slide narration:
Now it is your turn. Consider this question: It’s the end of the first semester and 90 school days have gone by. What does it mean for a student to be in the Satisfactory Attendance category?
(Give people a minute to work it out and then invite someone to offer an answer, bring up the answer on the PPT slide, congratulate the person for getting it right)

17. Your Turn A: Student is in the At-Risk category
Satisfactory Attendance
At-Risk
Chronic Absence
Q: It’s the end of the first semester and 90 school days have gone by.
You meet with a student who was absent 8 days in the first semester. What category is she in?
A: Student is in the At-Risk category
(8/90 = 8.9% absence rate)
Slide narration. Another question: It’s the end of the first semester and 90 school days have gone by. You meet with a student who was absent 8 days in the first semester. What category is she in?
(Give people a minute to work it out and then invite someone to offer an answer, bring up the answer on the PPT slide, congratulate the person for getting it right)

18. Attendance Categories: Recapped
Satisfactory Attendance
Student has missed fewer than 5% of school days (generally less than 4 or 5 days in a semester)
At-Risk
Student has missed between 6% and 9% of school days (generally between 5-9 days in a semester)
Chronic Absence
Student has missed 10% or more of school days (generally 9 days or more in a semester)
Slide narration:
So to recap:
Satisfactory attendance is when a student misses 5% or less of the school year.
At-Risk attendance is when a student misses between 6% - 9% of the school year.
Chronic absence is when a student misses 10% or more of the school year.
Reflection:
Are these measures of student attendance commonly understood and used to flag students for tiered interventions at your school? If not how would you help to introduce these concepts to your school community?

19. Action Step Slide narration:
As a next step, you or your school community could take this attendance self assessment of school practice to identify the school attendance practices that your school is doing well and those that you could work to improve or put in place. The self assessment resource is located on the Attendance Works Web site at attendanceworks.org.
Reflection: What are your school’s greatest strengths? Where are gaps or areas in need of improvement? What are the implications for where you might start to take action?
More information:

20. Learn More Develop Programmatic Responses to Systemic Barriers
If large numbers of students are affected by chronic absence, that suggests some type of systemic barrier or barriers are at play. Identifying the barriers to attendance can indicate the appropriate solutions.
Identifying Factors Contributing to Chronic Absence
Once you know whether chronic absence is a problem in your school and for which groups of children, it is important to begin examining what factors might be affecting attendance.
Additional information to assist you includes the following resources:
Develop Programmatic Responses to Systemic Barriers
If you determine that a large number of students are affected by chronic absence, this resource can assist in identifying those barriers. Also,
Identifying Factors Contributing to Chronic Absence- is a resource that will assist in examining what factors might be affecting attendance. This guide discusses how you can use quantitative and qualitative data to inform your understanding.
Additional information to include in the guide:
Additional information for the guide:
More information:

21. Virginia Absenteeism & Truancy Professional Development Series
1. Understanding Chronic Absenteeism
2. Frameworks for Reducing Chronic Absence
3. Establishing School Attendance Teams
4. Using Data to Drive Action
5. Messaging Attendance
6. Integrating Attendance In Parent Engagement
7. Utilizing Parent-Teacher Conferences to Talk with Families about Attendance
8. Recognizing Good and Improved Attendance
9. Providing Personalized Early Outreach
10. Identifying barriers
11. Creating opportunities for peer learning
12. Engaging Community Partners
13. State Attendance Laws and Regulations
Facilitator talking points: Thank you for taking the time to review module two. The next module in this series, module 3, is entitled: Establishing School Attendance Teams