1. Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
September GATE Equity Webinar Attendance Awareness: Starting with Tier 1 Supports
Thank you for joining us for the afternoon session of the September GATE Equity Webinar.
Where we explore topics related to equity in graduation success.
This webinar will be recorded and will be posted in the next couple of weeks.
The PowerPoint is posted on OSPI on the GATE Equity Webinar page if you want to follow along. We have also added supplementary materials so you can go even deeper.
This morning’s topic is Attendance Awareness: Starting with Tier 1 Supports
Attendance is a measure of School Quality and Student Success in the Every Student Succeeds Act.
We chose this topic because September is attendance awareness month and Washington State’s been identified as having the second worst rate in the nation.  
Our state data show that nearly 17 percent of students in Washington state were chronically absent in the school year. And more than 1 in 5 low-income students were chronically absent. Our hope is that this webinar can provide you some best practices from real practitioners.
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
Chris Reykdal, State Superintendent

2. Vision: Mission: Values:
All students prepared for post-secondary pathways, careers, and civic engagement.
Mission:
Transform K–12 education to a system that is centered on closing opportunity gaps and is characterized by high expectations for all students and educators. We achieve this by developing equity-based policies and supports that empower educators, families, and communities.
Values:
OSPI is guided by our Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal. We want All students prepared for post-secondary pathways, careers, and civic engagement. We will get there by living our values.

3. Office of System & School Improvement
We believe we are more likely to see school improvement across multiple measures if we:
Focus on schools identified for supports
Connect programming to specific needs
Build the health of systems
Provide professional learning on data inquiry and supportive resources and tools
This GATE webinar is brought to you through the Office of System and School Improvement.

4. Who Are We? Kefi Andersen Graduation Equity Program Supervisor OSPI
Krissy Johnson
Attendance Program Supervisor
Peter Anderson
Assistant Principal
Harriet Thompson Elementary Grandview School District
Tony Torres
Graduation Specialist
Grandview School District
I’m Kefi Andersen, OSPI Graduation Equity Program Supervisor.
I’m joined today by Krissy Johnson, Attendance Program Supervisor, along with Peter Anderson, Assistant Principal at Harriet Thompson Elementary and Graduation Specialist Tony Torres, of Grandview School District.
Thanks for being here today.

5. Today’s Topics Why start with Tier 1? Best practice
What does Tier 1 look like in the field? Grandview
Resources
Our topics for today are why start with Tier 1, Best practices, and Grandview is going to share with you what they have been doing to see results. You’ll also get some great resources.

6. Questions & Polling Who Works on Attendance in your building?
Just me – I’m amazing!
Attendance Secretary
Part of Student Support/Intervention Team
We have an Attendance Team
We’re going to start out with a poll to get to know you better.
Who works on attendance in your building?
Just me – I’m amazing!
Attendance Secretary
Part of Student Support/Intervention Team
We have an Attendance Team
Also as a reminder, if you have questions as we go along, please do type them in the questions link so we can monitor and respond to you.

7. Setting the Stage What is chronic absence & Why are we focused on it?
I’m going to hand off to Krissy, who is going to tell us a little more about the baseline of what Chronic Absenteeism is.
Krissy?
What is chronic absence & Why are we focused on it?

8. What is Chronic Absenteeism?
10% of school days
Excused
Unexcused
Chronic Absenteeism

9. Which is Different From…
Truancy
Daily Average Attendance
Only unexcused absences.
Washington: 5+ unexcused days in a month or 10+ in a year
Number of students showing up to school each day*.
Given that chronic absence is a fairly new concept in our state, I want to take a moment to clarify definitions. We are noticing that this is an important building block as we shift our focus away from truancy in this state, and nationwide, and can help in your communications to your community and families.
Earlier Lance mentioned that attendance is one of the SQSS measures. To clarify, the regular attendance measure is the inverse of chronic absenteeism, from here on out I will be discussing this concept.
In general, a student is considered chronically absent if they miss 10% or more of their school days for any reason: excused, unexcused, and suspensions. (more than 2 in a month or 18 in a year). How a school, district or the state arrives at that 10% is variable. We have a more nuanced calculation for the school improvement framework under ESSA, and we also have some qualifications around suspensions due to the legal requirement to provide educational services, this detail is included in the new absence rules.
Daily average attendance – number of students showing up to school each day. The article below describes research that shows schools with Average Daily Attendance rates below 97 can have high rates of chronic absenteeism, because average daily attendance looks at the average of students coming to school each day, and chronic absenteeism is a student-level measure. ADA is a great way of celebrating, but it’s not the whole picture.
Truancy – only unexcused. read above
*Chronic Elementary Absenteeism: A Problem Hidden in Plain Sight

10. How is our state reporting Chronic Absence?
88% Regularly Attending
12% Chronically Absent
Chronic Absence Inverted
Regular Attendance

11. Why Chronic Absenteeism?
Established body of research showing impacts of all absences on school success
Included in ESSA as School Quality and Student Success (SQSS) measure
Federal Reporting & State Reporting
Legislative changes focused on prevention and intervention, not just crisis response

12. Our Why Attendance is a powerful signal
Opportunity for a mindset shift: from punitive to supportive; from reactive to proactive
What can we do to support you to be in school and be successful there?   
There’s a role for everyone in attendance.
Increasing Attendance with a Human Approach
Attendance is a powerful signal, it can be an indicator, impacted by school climate, core instruction, student engagement.  Attendance is often one of the earliest signs of disengagement, or a signal of barrier at home, and provides another lens/aspect to factors contributing to a student’s success or lack thereof in school.
Opportunity for a mindset shift – from a punitive, approach, to a proactive, student and family engagement approach.  Asking – what can we do to support you to be in school and be successful there?  As opposed to responding with blame and punishment, works to further disengage. 
Everyone can see themselves in attendance – from state agencies to community partners and parents.  It’s a start of a conversation on school quality and student success.  It’s the one SQSS indicator in WA that applies to K-12. 

13. Multi-Tiered Response to Attendance
Tier 1: All Students
Positive school climate & focus on relationships
Clear, consistent & widely understood attendance policies
Absence data is accurate, timely & actionable
Engaging instruction & extracurricular activities
Define and teach “good attendance”
Celebrate good and improved attendance
Awareness efforts that educate parents and students about importance of attendance
Team monitors attendance data & manages interventions
Partnering with families
Tier 2: Students with At-risk Attendance
Personalized early outreach
Action plan addresses barriers and increases engagement
Nudge letters
Tier 3: Students that are Chronically Absent
Coordinated school and interagency response
Home visitors, graduation & family support specialists
Check & Connect
Community Truancy Boards

14. The Power of Universal: Tier 1 is the Foundation

15. Assessing Tier 1 Supports
Attendance Works School and District Assessment Tools
Attendance Works MTSS Tiered Resources Worksheet
OSPI Attendance System Improvement Guide

16. Questions & Polling 1 How do you think you are doing on Tier 1?
We’re really strong here
We’re ok for now
Could be better
Definitely needs work
Don’t know

17. Attendance Conversations in Grandview
Peter Anderson
Assistant Principal
H.T. Elementary
Tony Torres
Graduation Specialist
~3,700 Students
3 Elementaries, 1 middle school, 1 high school
92% Latinx
76% Free & Reduced Lunch
35% Transitional Bilingual

18. Why did you start looking at chronic absence?
Grandview had 21.3% chronically absent students
= 881 students
We realized we needed to own the problem.

19. Foundation is Relationships
Greeting students/families
Building relationships
Kindergarten visits

20. Consistent Policies & Procedures
Reporting of absences
Practices and procedures
Standardized Common Set of Expectations

21. Start With Accurate Attendance Data
Friendly reminder for staff who have not yet taken attendance.
Skyward -to staff members that haven’t taken attendance by 9:30 to VP/secretaries
Attendance spot check to verify accuracy -- teams bring data to attendance huddle

22. Getting Actionable Student Data: District Invested in Data System
Truancy Dropout Prevention System (Raawee)
Daily excused/ unexcused/ chronic dashboards for attendance secretaries and administration
Proposed actions aligned to WA St. Attendance requirements
Automates time intensive tasks
Attendance Letters, contracts for success

23. Critical System Support: District Trainings
Secretary
Data entry and weekly entry training
Specialist
Principal, Vice Principals
Counselor
Daily check-ins and troubleshooting visits
Building Staff Awareness Campaign
Prior to the start of school:

24. Building Teams Use the Data
Attendance Team Huddles
Admin
Secretaries
Counselors
ESD Advocate
District Advocates
District Reps
Building Teams Use the Data

25. Attendance Team Huddles
Norms
District Focus
What is our goal for attendance?
Comparison Data from to
Excused
Unexcused
Tardies
Community Truancy Boards
Special Groups
Education advocate ESD 105
Drug/alcohol counselor
Special Populations
WISE TEAM YVFWC-M. H.
RaaWee (Data System)
District data-Caseload breakdown-Admin/counselor and specialist

26. Parent outreach and meetings
Teachers are critical
Parent outreach and meetings
Teacher continues to monitor all student attendance and calls home each time student is absent.
Teacher s TASC (teachers, administrators, secretaries, counselors) to initiate team conversations about continuing absences.
Administrators place a watch in our attendance program. Concerns are elevated after Huddle.

27. Community Partners

28. Awareness Raising

29. “Strive for 5” Attendance Awareness Campaign
Banners posted throughout Grandview:
Schools
City Facilities
Extra Mile Student Center
High Traffic Intersections
Parks
City
School Electronic Reader-boards
Community-wide Strive for 5 partnership with area business partners:
City
Grandview Community Center
Extra Mile Student Center
Churches
Chamber of Commerce
Partnership with City for August National Night Out

30. “Strive for 5” Attendance Awareness Campaign 2
Open Houses, District Parent Nights, Student Led Conferences, Chamber Meetings, Rotary
Weekly campaign materials from OSPI, Attendance Works! and TDPS
Sandwich displays at all schools with attendance messages for parents
Positive reinforcements – Bikes, PBIS, extended lunches, off-campus privileges
Public Awareness campaign through parent s, reader-boards, Facebook, Twitter and phone call system

31. Incentives & Defining Good Attendance
P.A.C.E
Strive for Five
Student tracker
Attendance Ribbon Race
Extended/extra recess

32. Family Education & Partnership
Kindergarten visits
Attendance Packet
RaaWee letters
Phone calls home
Conferences
Monthly attendance campaign

33. Other Cool Efforts We’re Proud Of…
Attendance Van picks up truant students and is used for home visits
Home visits designed to remove barriers for students with significant attendance gaps

34. Our Results
In two years we have had a 28% reduction in chronic absence.
Our goal this next year is to be under 500 students. A 39% drop in three years.
76 fewer students
10% Reduction
153 fewer students
21% Reduction
*GOAL for 2019

35. What’s Your Why?

36. Questions & Polling 3
What is one major takeaway you have from today’s webinar?
Type it in the chat box – share your thought with everyone.
Please take a moment to reflect, what is one major takeaway you have from today’s webinar?
Writing it down helps make that action a reality, so jot it down.
If you’d like to share, we’d love to see your thinking in the chat.
If you have questions for Grandview, that we won’t get to in time, we will follow up with you.

37. September is Attendance Awareness Month
Social Media Toolkit: Weekly Posts & Resources
Posters in multiple languages (hard copy) available for order through our website
Attendance Competition:  Who can reduce their absences the most in September from the previous year? 
Sign Up for Attendance Newsletter here.
September is Attendance Awareness month and OSPI has some great communication tools for schools, including a social media toolkit, posters, in multiple languages, and cool swag like pop sockets! Join the attendance competition on the Attendance page and join the attendance call to action.

38. Resources System Improvement Guide Attendance page OSPI
Attendance Works Webpage
Webinars
Attendance Works
OSPI has partnered with EDNW to create a system improvement guide to help you work on attendance. It is a great resource for the research summary on attendance to share with stakeholders and has a rubric to help you assess where your school is at. Attendance Works is another great resource, with webinars, and more great evidence-based practices you could also check out.

39. Survey Tell us how we’re doing: http://bit.ly/GATEevaluation
Please take our evaluation. It helps us improve our content.
We are trying to constantly improve our performance. In an effort to capture your comments over time we’ve created a quick survey. Please help us by taking a minute to fill it out. If the webinar closes out, this link is also available in our Zoom reminders so you can always let us know your thoughts. We appreciate our audience and want to improve this experience for all of you.
We’ll put this link in the chat for you also.

40. GATE Advisory September 18 9:00 am-noon ESD 113, Tumwater Register
You can still register for GATE Advisory. Join us for panel discussions on effective community truancy board implementation and promotion of regular attendance with special guests from Clark County, ESD 112, Vancouver Public Schools, Evergreen Public Schools, Yelm Graduates, and Treehouse.  
There will also be time for action planning and resource sharing.   

41. Join ESD 105
Want to discuss GATE Equity Webinar for clock hours? Join ESD 105’s GATE PLCs!
ESD 105 has flattered us and created a GATE PLC. If you live near Yakima, this new group is focused on supporting your district and community in reaching higher graduation rates and improving student success. They are putting together additional local practitioners to share resources and discuss best practices. A great opportunity for professional learning!

42. Afternoon Session Today! 1:00-2:00 p.m. Register
If you love GATE Webinar and want to learn specifically about how to support students with disabilities around attendance, come back this afternoon to learn more.

43. Next Month 10 a.m. – 11 a.m. Register
Family Engagement & Student Discipline
1:00-2:00 p.m.
Students Who Smoke or Vape: A Red Flag for Supports
And Next month in October we are looking at discipline. We’ll have Josh Lynch with us to take a look at Family Engagement and Student Discipline.
As well as a webinar specifically on students who smoke or vape with strategies for supports.

44. Many of our images come from Canva.com and TheNounProject.com.
Creative Commons
Except where otherwise noted, this work by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 International License.
Many of our images come from Canva.com and TheNounProject.com.
We like to give credit where it is due. If you liked an image from GATE Equity Webinar, we use images that are in the creative commons. Many of our images come from thenounproject.com or canva.com