1. Data-Driven Practices that Improve Attendance
ATTENDANCE SUPPORT SESSION 2
Data-Driven Practices that Improve Attendance

2. “The single most powerful determinant of current attendance is past attendance.”
FINDING
“What Makes a Difference in Attendance” (Eskolta, 2012) 2

3. Objectives:
Understand that focusing on the last three days of attendance is more effective in addressing truancy than focusing on year- to-date attendance.
Use analysis of attendance data to target support for students with recent gains or drops in attendance.

4. Reflect on Two Students You Know:
Think about two of your students:
One who hasn’t been in class the last 2-3 days even though they used to attend more regularly.
One who has surprised you by showing up all of the last 3 days even though they hadn’t been attending class frequently before.
Discuss in pairs:
How have you or can you encourage the recently-absent student to come to class?
How have you or can you recognize the student who has turned around his or her attendance recently? 1

5. Share Reflections: Share one idea you discussed.
What shifts in thinking might have led these students to re-engage in school?
What interactions or experiences at school might have cultivated these shifts? 2

6. Attendance Trend-Spotter:
Years ago, Eskolta asked the director of a school that was posting dramatic improvements in student attendance how she did it. “I hate unusable data,” she said. “So, I just look at this.” She pulled out a list of 200 students in the school with three columns—one with their attendance for each of the last 3 days of school. “If a see a change in here, I act on it right away.” 3

7. Attendance Trend-Spotter:
The Trend-Spotter Worksheet allows educators to compare students’ attendance from the past 3 days of school to that of the last 20 days of school, which is more actionable than looking at only year-to- date attendance. 3

8. Attendance Trend-Spotter:
Look over the Trend-Spotter “Sample Highlights” tab.
What initial patterns do you notice when you look over these data?
Review the column headings and the key. 3

9. Attendance from Past 3 Days Attendance from Last 20- 90 Days
Analyze Sample Data:
Compare students’ attendance in the last 3 days with their attendance in the last 20.
Attendance from Past 3 Days
Attendance from Last Days
High
80-90%
Medium
50-79%
Low
0-49% 4

10. Attendance from Past 3 Days Atten- dance from Last 20- 90 Days
Analyze Sample Data:
Which students experienced the largest gains in attendance (green boxes)?
Which experienced the largest drops (red boxes)?
Which students have been consistently absent (purple box)?
What steps could you take to learn more about these students?
Attendance from Past 3 Days
Atten- dance from Last Days
High
80-90%
Medium
50-79%
Low
0-49% 4

11. Analyze Data: Review attendance data from your class or school.
Looking at average attendance from the past 3 days and last 20 days, sort students into the appropriate boxes on the Attendance 3x3 Matrix. 5

12. Discuss Observations:
What do you know about the students who have had the largest gains in attendance that could provide insights into those changes?
What do you know about the students who have had the largest drops in attendance that could explain those changes?
What steps could you take to learn more about the reasons for these changes? 6

13. 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:
Understand that focusing on the last three days of attendance is more effective in addressing truancy than focusing on year- to-date attendance.
Use analysis of attendance data to target support for students with recent gains or drops in attendance. 7

14. What’s next?
Explore strategies for noticing and re-engaging students with recent drops in attendance
Conduct a deeper analysis of attendance data across all of your classes
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