1. Attendance & Truancy Among Virginia Students
12/10/2018
Attendance & Truancy Among Virginia Students
Module 1: Reducing Chronic Absence
Why Does It Matter?
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.

2. The Purpose
This PowerPoint serves as No. 1 in a series of modules designed to equip Virginia school divisions with resources to reduce truancy and absenteeism.
This module defines chronic absence and demonstrates its impact on academic achievement.
Facilitator: Review the purpose of the module with the participants.
Slide narration:
This learning module is the first in a series of modules designed to equip Virginia school divisions and schools with strategies, frameworks, and materials and resources to help you to increase attendance and reduce chronic absence.
This training lays the foundation for the other subsequent trainings.

3. Virginia Absenteeism & Truancy Professional Development Series
1. Understanding Chronic Absenteeism
2. Learning What Works to Reduce 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. Engaging Community Partners
12. Creating opportunities for peer learning
13. State Attendance Laws and Regulations
Facilitator: This slide is meant as a follow up to slide two so that participants can see the full list of modules available .
Slide narration:
Module 1 will lay the ground work for understanding what chronic absence is and how it affects student achievement through a child’s academic life.

4. Today’s Agenda Learning goals review What is chronic absence
How chronic absence impacts achievement
Attendance reflection
Facilitator: Review the agenda with your audience.

5. Learning Goals
Educators will learn what chronic absence is and how it differs from other measures of attendance.
Educators will learn how chronic absence affects academic outcomes.
Facilitator: Review the learning goals with your audience.

6. Warm Up
Reflection
Remember a time that you helped a student or a school improve attendance.
How did you know that the student was missing too much school or that the school had high rates of absenteeism?
How were the absences affecting the academic outcomes of the student or the students at the school?
Slide narration: Remember a time when you helped a student or a school improve attendance. How did you know the student or school had high rates of absenteeism? How were the absences affecting academic outcomes?
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.

7. What is Chronic Absence?
Chronic absence 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:
What is chronic absence?
It 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.
Chronic absence is a measure of lost instructional time for any reason.

8. Different Attendance Measures
Average Daily Attendance
ADA = How many students typically show up to school each day.
Truancy
Truancy = Absences that aren’t defined as excused either by law or regulation. May be a trigger for possible legal action. Excused absences are defined by each state or local school division.
Chronic Absence
CA = Students who are at academic risk because they missed too much school for any reason – excused, unexcused, and suspensions. Defined as missing 10% or more of school days.
Slide narration: Unpacking attendance terms is critical because the word attendance encompasses multiple measures – each of which mean something different. If we aren’t clear about which attendance measure we are using, we can easily get confused and think we are talking about the same thing when we are not. Here are three of the most common measures. The first is ADA– which refers to the percentage of students who show up to school every day. It is often used for funding because it helps us know for example –how many desks do I need in my school to accommodate the typical number of students who show up every day. The second term is truancy – which typically refers only to unexcused absences. But, keep in mind truancy is defined differently across states In Maryland for example truancy means missing 20% of the school year due to unexcused absences. In California, it is a child who misses more than 3 days without a valid excuse or is late to class by 30 minutes 3 times. [Question to Joann: do you want to talk about Virginia’s chronic truancy measure here?] Regardless of the definition, truancy is typically used to begin identifying when a student may be breaking state compulsory education laws and to trigger the beginning of legal intervention. Chronic absence is a relatively new term that is based upon what research shows about the impact of lost instructional time. It is defined as missing 10% or more of schools days and shows when a student has missed so much school that he or she is academically at risk.

9. Average Daily Attendance (ADA) Can Mask Chronic Absence
90% and even 95% ≠ A
98% ADA =
little chronic absence
95% ADA =
don’t know
93% or below ADA = significant chronic absence
Slide narration:
Likewise, it is important to recognize the limitation of monitoring average daily attendance or ADA.
Let’s say, for example, you have a school with 200 students.
If 190 show up to school – that is 95% attendance. But let’s say 10 students miss every day. How many absences is that over a 180-day school year? It’s 1,800. Does that mean all 200 students missed exactly 9 days? Probably not. Or did 90 students miss 20 days? Probably not. The truth is, you don’t know how many chronically absent kids you have until you look at your data...
This slide shows variations in chronic absence across elementary schools in Oakland, California. all of which had a 95% ADA rate.
ADA is a school rate that doesn’t tell you which students are missing 10% of their days on roll and on track to chronic absence.
Additionally it is important to note that the lower the average daily attendance rate is, the more likely it is that the school has a significant number of chronically absent students.

10. Truancy (unexcused absences) Can Also Mask Chronic Absence
Slide narration:
Here is a comparison of chronic absence and truancy – students who missed 10 days without an excuse by near the end of a school year in San Francisco.
Take a look at kindergarten.
Using a chronic absence measure, the district identified twice as many students than if it only looked at the truancy data.
This is important for the purposes of intervening early and using the right attendance measure as an early warning indicator.
It is unlikely that a kindergartner is going to be absent without someone knowing about it.
Often those early excused absences, left uninterrupted, become a repeated pattern and turn into unexcused absences when students are older.

11. Chronic Absence = 18 days of absence = 2 days a month
Why We May Not Notice
Chronic Absence
Slide narration:
It’s easy not to notice when a student is missing too much school.
10% of a school year is about 18 days of absence.
That sounds like a lot but when you break it down, that’s just two days a month.
Most parents, and many schools, don’t get too stressed out when a student misses two days of class in a month.
But when it happens month after month, it becomes a problem.
Many school and school division data systems aren’t set up to track which students are at-risk for chronic absence.(DO WE KNOW WHETHER THIS IS TRUE IN VIRGINIA? WE SHOULD CHECK BEFORE GOING FORWARD?
This is something we hope to change.
Absences Add Up
Chronic Absence = 18 days of absence = 2 days a month

12. Why Does Attendance Matter for Achievement?
What we know from research around the country

13. Improving Attendance Matters Because It Reflects:
Exposure to language: Starting in Pre-K, attendance equals exposure to language-rich environments especially for low- income children.
Time on Task in Class: Students only benefit from classroom instruction if they are in class.
On Track for Success: Chronic absence is a proven early warning sign that a student is behind in reading by 3rd grade, failing middle & high school classes, and likely to drop-out.
College Readiness: Attendance patterns predict college enrollment and persistence.
Engagement: Attendance reflects engagement in learning.
Slide Narration:
Starting in Pre-K, student attendance equals exposure to language-rich environments. This is especially important for children from low-income families. Students need to be in the classroom to benefit from what’s being taught there, Too many absences leave students struggling to read well by the end of third grade, failing classes in middle and high school and dropping out of high school. Attendance in high school even predicts college enrollment and persistence.
Resource: For research, see:

14. Starting in Pre-K, More Years of Chronic Absence = Need for Intensive Reading Support By 2nd
Some risk
At-risk
Slide narration:
Researchers in Chicago wanted to understand the relationship between chronic absence and reading levels in 2nd grade.
They analyzed the attendance patterns of a group of students in 2nd grade and compared their attendance history against their 2nd grade reading scores.
They found that beginning with prekindergarten, each year of chronic absence resulted in increased need for reading intervention by the 2nd grade.
See the stair step pattern.
The students represented in the left hand blue bar were never chronically absent and had the highest reading fluency scores.
The students in the next bar over, were chronically absent just in prekindergarten and you can already see a slight dip in academic outcomes.
Every year of absence correlates with lower achievement.
By the end of 2nd grade the students with persistent chronic absence are in need of serious reading intervention.
* Indicates that scores are significantly different from scores of students who are never chronically absent, at p<.05 level; **p<.01; ***p<.001

15. Chronic Early Absence Connected to 3rd Grade-Level Reading
Chronic absence in kindergarten
Lower levels of literacy in first grade
Lower achievement as far out as fifth grade
A Rhode Island Data Hub analysis found that compared to kindergartners who attend regularly, those chronically absent:
Scored 20% lower in reading and math in later grades and gap grows
2X as likely to be retained in grade.
2X likely to be suspended by the end of 7th grade.
Likely to continue being chronically absent
Slide narration
Here is another example of research that demonstrates the link between early absenteeism and lower levels of achievement and other negative outcomes as the students advance.
In this analysis, students who were chronically absent in kindergarten showed lower levels of literacy in 1st grade. Chronic absence in kindergarten also predicted lower levels of achievement through 5th grade.
Students who were chronically absents were also twice as likely to be retained and suspended.

16. Chronic Absence is Especially Challenging for Low-Income Children
Poor children are 4x more likely to be chronically absent in K than their highest income peers.
Children in poverty are more likely to lack basic supports that help them get to school. They often face:
Unstable Housing
Limited Access to Health Care
Lack of Safe Paths to School
Inadequate Food and Clothing
Chaotic Schools with Poor Quality Programs, etc.
Unreliable Transportation
Slide narration:
Children living in poverty are four times more likely to be chronically absent in K than their highest income peers.
In addition, children in poverty are more likely to face the kind of barriers – unreliable transportation, unstable housing or homelessness, and lack of access to health care -- that cause children to be chronically absent year after year.
* (Romero & Lee 2007)

17. Increase in probability of 6th grade chronic absence
Multiple Years of Elementary Chronic Absence = Worse Middle School Outcomes
Each year of chronic absence in elementary school is associated with a substantially higher probability of chronic absence in 6th grade
18.0x
Chronic absence in 1st grade is also associated with:
Lower 6th grade test scores
Higher levels of suspension
Increase in probability of 6th grade chronic absence
7.8x
Slide narration: This chart shows why we need to start tracking chronic absence as early as possible. This Attendance Works analysis found that students who were chronically absent in 1st grade were 5.8 – nearly six times – more likely to be chronically absent in 6th grade. Early chronic absence also predicted lower test scores and higher suspension rates. If a child was chronically absent for three years en elementary school– they were 18 times more likely to be chronically absent in sixth grade. There are other kids who fall off track in middle or high school even if they attended regularly in the early grades. But the kids who are most expensive to bring back we may have lost in kindergarten and first grade – and because we were looking at truancy- -we didn’t notice that they or their families needed our help. We missed the opportunity to interrupt chronic absence before they fell so far behind that they feel like school is not a place where they can succeed.
5.9x
Years of Chronic Absence in Grades 1-5
Oakland Unified School District SY , Analysis By Attendance Works

18. The Effects of Chronic Absence on Dropout Rates Are Cumulative
With every year of chronic absenteeism, a higher percentage of students dropped out of school.
Slide narration:
By middle school, chronic absence is a surefire indicator of drop out across students of all backgrounds.
In Utah, researchers found that just one year of chronic absence – anytime between 8th and 12th grade -- was associated with 3 times higher levels of drop out.
If a student was chronically absent for two years, over half the students dropped out.

19. Attendance Is Even More Important for Graduation for Students In Poverty
Slide narration:
While attendance matters for all students, it is particularly critical for students who live in poverty.
Fewer than 40% of the chronically absent students who were eligible for free and reduced meals graduated from high school.
By contrast 67% of the more affluent students who were chronically absent ended up graduating.
Presentation to: The Interagency Council for Ending the Achievement Gap November 7, 2013, CT State Dept of Education.

20. Learn More
Before moving on with the additional modules we would like to encourage you to learn more about this issue. Specifically please consider reading:
Present, Engaged and Accounted For: The Critical Importance of Addressing Chronic Absence in the Early Grades, National Center for Children in Poverty, New York, NY, September (
Absences Add Up: How School Attendance Influences Student Success, Attendance Works, August (
New Britain, Connecticut, a national bright spot ( focus-on-kindergarten/)

21. Virginia Absenteeism & Truancy Professional Development Series
1. Understanding Chronic Absenteeism
2. Learning What Works to Reduce Chronic Absence
3. Establishing School Attendance Teams
4. Using Data to Drive Action
5. Messaging Attendance
6. Integrating Attendance into Parent Engagement
7. Leveraging Parent-Teacher Conferences
8. Recognizing Good and Improved Attendance
9. Providing Personalized Early Outreach
10. Identifying barriers
11. Engaging Community Partners
12. Creating opportunities for peer learning
13. State Attendance Laws and Regulations
Slide narration: Thank you for taking the time to review module one. The next module in this series in module 2: Learning what works to reduce chronic absence.