Attending to Attendance

Part I – Corrective Measures

Many school districts may already be seeing the need to file truancy on unexcused absences. Some campuses may have students who fall within the 75-90% attendance rule, as well as those below the 75% attendance threshold. Suppose the campus has students who fall into one of these categories. In that case, districts should ensure that their campus attendance committees are formed and ready to meet regarding the 1st-semester course credit approvals.

Some administrators may not be aware of all the tools a campus administrator has in their TxSP toolbelt to address absences and truancy. So what steps can our District take to increase our attendance and our funding?

STEP 1: The NEW training for campus administrators reminds administrators of and provides links to all the tools they should be implementing now. TxSP recently did a training with a district’s campus principals, assistant principals, and school counselors. After all the tools were reviewed, the campus teams used their attendance and truancy data to develop plans for specific students who had already met the threshold for action. Everyone left with a campus action plan of the next steps to take. Nine out of ten participants surveyed stated the workshop was “Very Helpful,” and one said “Helpful.”

STEP 2: Train your staff on the importance of attending to attendance and the roles they can play in encouraging daily student attendance in their classrooms.

Part 2 – Prevention

STEP 3: Engage your school counselors in discussions with students about their absences and tardies to identify underlying emotional, behavioral, or trauma issues that require attention. Be sure to point them in the right direction to their resources.

STEP 4: TxSP developed a new document this summer that was highlighted in one of our newsletters listing all the prevention activity requirements and multiple links to support the prevention planning.  See page 7 of this document to help each campus determine a campus-wide plan to increase attendance.