A school infrastructure is needed to ensure attendance is monitored, chronically absent students are identified and supports are provided to them.

This infrastructure can build on what schools already have in place. For example, many schools use a prevention-oriented, tiered approach to identify students with academic or behavioral challenges (e.g., PBIS). This can be modified to include students with attendance challenges.

The poster below and other materials can be downloaded from this website. See Resource section.

The individual designated by the principal to promote a positive culture of attendance may also be responsible for coordinating regularly scheduled meetings (weekly or bi-weekly) in partnership with the principal. The purposes of these meetings are to:

• identify any students who are chronically absent and provide early interventions,
• review progress made by chronically absent students who are receiving supports (e.g., mentoring), and
• determine which practices being used are effective with your students and consider whether the practices should become part of the school-wide culture.

In addition to the principal, other attendance team members may include social workers, community liaisons, student support staff, school nurses, attendance teachers, and school-based mentors.

The NYC Principals' Guide provides detailed information about how to implement attendance teams in your schools.

Note: The attendance team's focus needs be on ongoing, positive engagement. Therefore, this team should not be responsible for any enforcement procedures.

The goals of mentoring are to:

(1) engage students through personal relationships with adults;

(2) identify reasons students are not attending school; and

(3) work with school staff who can link students and families to supports that help address reasons for poor attendance (e.g., health, transportation).

Students who are chronically absent are identified using the NYS Education Department SIRS reports and mentors are assigned to the students.

Typically, mentors are teachers, school aides, parent liaisons, guidance counselors, social workers and administrators.

• Mentors who are not school employees have confidentiality agreements; in some instances, they may be fingerprinted.
• Contact with families is left to school staff who have the authority to discuss absences; this may or may not be the responsibility of mentors.

Source: aha! Process

One district began by asking teachers to assume responsibility for being a mentor to up to 5 students. The coordinator of the mentor program worked with a local coffee shop and was able to provide $10 gift cards to the teachers.

Mentors have a small group of students for whom they are responsible. It is the responsibility of the mentor to meet their students individually and in small groups. Mentor-to-student ratios commonly used:

• 8-15 students to 1 volunteer mentor
• 5 students to 1 teacher

Examples of mentor responsibilities include activities where mentors:

• meet and greet their students each day;
• call home when their students are absent to let parents and students know they are missed;
• host one-to-one and small group activities (e.g., meet to eat lunch together, gather to celebrate small attendance improvements);
• regularly offer positive encouragement;
• regularly meet and work with school administrators and other mentors to share successes and identify supports that could remedy reasons why students are absent.

The NYC Success Mentor Corps Guide provides detailed information about how to implement a mentor program in your schools.

Advisory: 22 Ways to Build Relationships for Educational Success

• Programs such as yoga classes that help students develop coping skills so they are better able to participate in new situations that make them uncomfortable

• Empowerment programs to help students deal with concerns about being ostracized by peers (e.g., young female "tweens" dealing with "mean girls").

Source: Great Schools

• Listen to administrators talk about how their promotion of social-emotional learning reduces bullying, improves school climate and enhances student learning.

Source: Beyond Bulling Summit

• Curricula that promote social emotional learning (SEL) help improve the overall school climate as well as improve children's overall healthy development and academic success. Dr. Mark Greenberg, a developer of PATHS, highlights the benefits of SEL.

Source: PATHS

Restorative practices use a community process for supporting those in conflict. The restorative circle brings together the three main parties to a conflict – those who have acted, those directly impacted and the wider community – within an intentional systemic context, to dialogue as equals. Participants invite each other and attend voluntarily. The dialogue process used is shared openly with all participants, and guided by a community member. The process ends when actions have been found that bring mutual benefit.

• Teaching Restorative Practices with Classroom Circles

• NEA Bullying Prevention strategies help create a safe environment that is more inclusive and engaging to students by involving all adults in the schools.
  • Paraeducators' role in bullying prevention
  • Bus drivers' role in bullying prevention
  • Food service staff role in bullying prevention

CDC Managing Food Allergies in Schools and Early Care and Education Programs

Strategies for Addressing Asthma in Schools xx

Help Hub for Families

EPA A Guild to Implementing an Indoor Air Quality Program

Addressing the Health-Related Causes of Chronic Absenteeism: A Toolkit for Action

Alternatives to suspension ensure students do not miss instruction; these strategies can be especially useful for some older students who have academic challenges and may skip school or act out in class in an effort to be suspended, hoping to avoid school work.

• Instead of Suspension offers alternative strategies for effective school discipline.

• The US Department of Education believes teachers and students deserve school environments that are safe, supportive, and conducive to teaching and learning. Creating a supportive school climate—and decreasing suspensions and expulsions—requires close attention to the social, emotional, and behavioral needs of all students.
• Follow this issue on social media with #rethinkdiscipline
• Read the report, Rethinking School Discipline, by the New York State School Board Association

Source: wiia.org