A comprehensive Approach to Improving Student Attendance in Los Angeles County a report from the School Attendance Task Force

Task Force Recommendations

Through the School Attendance Task Force, stakeholders will coordinate strategies, share best practices, and track outcomes. The Task Force will also develop an action plan to outline strate­gies and timelines for implementing the recommendations in this report.

Countywide

1. 
   Maintain a vibrant School Attendance Task Force with stakeholders from school districts, the courts, law enforcement, the community, and other relevant entities to implement the recom­mendations in this initial report, review key data, evaluate the effectiveness of various pro­grams and interventions, promote the replication of effective models, and, where neces­sary, encourage the modification or enhancement of promising programs.
   

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  The School Attendance Task Force reports its work to the Education Coordinating Coun­cil and other boards/commissions, as appropriate.
  

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  The Task Force collects bi-annual statistics from public agencies with roles in imple­ment­ing or enforcing policies that affect student attendance.
  

2. 
   Develop information-sharing protocols among stakeholder agencies/groups. Existing inter-sector and interdepartmental data systems will be reviewed as a starting place, and barri­ers to sharing will be addressed and overcome through collaborative efforts, a blanket court order, or legislation.
   

Schools

1. 
   Focus on proven universal strategies such as:
   

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  Effective and engaging instruction (such as Big Picture Learning’s one-student-at-a-time, advisor-led, project-based approach), and proven alternative-school models for students with challenging or special needs
  
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  Transforming schools to create a positive culture with high expectations, a welcoming envi­ronment, excellent management, good teachers, a solid curriculum, strong parent involve­ment and engagement, and learning environments that are culturally relevant and respectful of the skills and knowledge students bring to school; in these schools, for exam­ple, if a student is missing from school, staff members may go to their homes and knock on the door to find out what’s wrong
  

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  Teaching good attendance practices to families and students
  

2. 
   Create a strong attendance data collection and dissemination system that helps target interventions early and often.
   

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  Ensure that teachers submit attendance information on a daily basis.
  
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  Collect and regularly publish school-district attendance data that include a strong focus on chronic absences and severe chronic absences, and that highlight suspensions and other out-of-school exclusions, in addition to excused and unexcused absences.
  
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  Make accurate, real-time attendance data available to individual schools and their commu­nity partners to drive agency decision-making.
  
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  Disaggregate attendance data by key demographic and educational categories.
  
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  Address all absences, including those that are excused and unexcused.
  
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  Set yearly concrete, measurable, and well-publicized attendance goals by school and by dis­trict.
  
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  Record the reason(s) for student absences, so that appropriate school and support staff can address their underlying causes.
  
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  Build an individualized early-warning system that uses multiple measures of attendance and suspensions.
  
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  Require school sites to review data daily and weekly to identify students with needs and provide them with appropriate interventions.
  

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  If the early-warning system is triggered, school attendance office staff immediately respond by, for example, convening a Student Study Team meeting or a meeting with the stu­dent and parent at which the importance of attendance is shared and strategies and ser­vices are offered.
  

3. 
   Reduce school-initiated exclusions.
   

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  Have zero tolerance for zero-tolerance policies.
  
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  Adopt district-wide positive behavior support plans and school-wide discipline plans that create alternatives to exclusions (see Discipline Foundation Policy School-Wide Positive Behavior Support Program in Appendix 00.0.0.0.0Appendix D for a link to the Los Ange­les Unified School Dis­trict’s PBIS plan).
  
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  Ensure that the school’s discipline code requires that initial interventions be made prior to suspensions for minor offenses, that it restricts the use of suspensions for “defi­ance/disruption,” and that it promotes affirmatively teaching positive behavior and provid­ing pro-social behavior lessons to students who violate school rules.
  
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  Set clear and ambitious goals by school and by district for reducing suspensions and expul­sions across the board and for particular subgroups, such as African-Americans, who are disproportionately suspended and expelled.
  
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  Inform the juvenile court, youth-serving county departments, and advocates prior to stu­dent expulsions, suspensions, or opportunity transfers.
  
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  Use the juvenile court’s 317e Panel for alternative solutions.
  

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  Cease end-of-the-year “push-outs” or “force-outs.”
  

4. 
   Partner with families early and often.
   

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  Invite family participation early on by making person-to-person contact on the same day of an absence or tardy, and explain how attendance is tied to successful outcomes such as high school graduation and employment.
  
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  Adopt problem-solving strategies for students who are chronically absent, and work closely with parents to alleviate the reasons behind their child’s poor attendance (for exam­ple, absences due to asthma or other chronic medical conditions).
  
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  Find ways to honor and reward parents for their child’s good attendance in pre-school through the eighth grade.
  
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  Create a structured parent education program that is continuously offered to all parents, especially those who have students with attendance issues. This program should:
  

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  Offer parents specific suggestions on how to support their children in school and get involved in their education (see Appendix 00.0.0.0.0Appendix F for background materials on the Alham­bra Unified School District’s Parent University and its Incredible Years program).
  
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  Ensure that these suggestions are “doable” for all parents, particularly for those who may have struggled in school themselves.
  
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  Educate parents about the basic things they can do to establish a school-going culture in their home, such as annual health and dental check-ups, an adequate night’s sleep, morning routines that allow enough time for travel and breakfast, etc.
  

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  Include questions on parent surveys about attendance, such as when and why it is diffi­cult to get their children to school and how schools can help.
  

5. 
   Create a communication/media campaign regarding the importance of attendance.
   

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  Make the first-day-of-school enrollment and regular attendance during the first two weeks of school a top priority for schools, city government, county and city agencies, and community organizations and partners.
  
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  Communicate frequently with parents and families about the importance of regular and on-time attendance and use a variety of messengers, languages, and formats to ensure that these messages are heard and reinforced.
  
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  Use positive, motivational messages for students, including stories that illustrate the advan­tages of staying in school.
  

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  Identify corporate, media, cultural, and elected-official supporters to help carry positive and pro-active messages.
  

6. 
   Create a uniform system at each school site that focuses on prevention and intervention.
   

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  Prevention, intervention, and recovery should be the focus, rather than punishment and legal intervention.
  
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  Immediately identify at-risk and truant youth, refer them for a comprehensive assess­ment, and provide a continuum of services for assisting them.
  
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  Develop an individualized, comprehensive plan for students with the most intense needs, which includes incentives, prevention, intervention, and credit-recovery strategies and ser­vices, relationship-building, case management, and other tools that address the root causes of truancy.
  

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  Ensure that school counselors and staff are trained to provide daily supports and interven­tions to students with attendance concerns.
  

7. 
   Maximize partnerships to ensure a range of services that address the root causes of tru­ancy.
   

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  Partner with the county Departments of Health, Public Health, and Mental Health, along with community and faith-based organizations, to publicize available services, stress their im­portance, create a network of services, and address parental concerns.
  
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  Maximize health partnerships to ensure that students receive annual health, dental, and vision examinations and appropriate mental health services.
  
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  Increase the use of holistic wellness centers on school campuses, such as those estab­lished at Washington Prep and Fremont High Schools.
  

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  Create more partnerships between government agencies to deliver integrated services on school campuses, such as the Gloria Molina Foster Youth Education Program model through which social workers are outstationed on campuses to create and implement educa­tion plans for foster youth.
  

8. 
   Focus on high-need populations, schools, grades, and times of year.
   

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  Develop an indicator showing the number of school years during which a student has been chronically absent, include this indicator on key school reports, and focus atten­dance efforts on children with multiple periods of chronic absence.
  
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  Ensure that school-based health staff use attendance and chronic-absence data to target their outreach and prioritize services and follow-up care for dental, nutrition, asthma, men­tal health, or other health needs.
  
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  Encourage schools with poor attendance to budget for a full-time, dedicated attendance monitor, and make attendance the first priority of their school improvement plan.
  
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  Focus on attendance in key transition grades—kindergarten, first, fifth, sixth, eighth, and ninth (depending on elementary and middle school feeder patterns)—and provide addi­tional attention and interventions in these grades.
  
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  Partner with and help train early childhood organizations, such as Head Start, Zero to Three, and LAUP, to emphasize the importance of pre-K and kindergarten attendance.
  

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  Encourage schools to use student mobility as a trigger for additional academic and sup­port services, and to pay special attention to the attendance of highly mobile students, such as homeless youth and youth in foster care.
  

9. 
   Utilize rewards and attendance incentives at the individual student, class, grade and school levels.
   

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  Adopt a ratio of four incentives (for example, public recognition for improved atten­dance, gift certificates for perfect attendance, daily praise for student attendance, bonus points) to each single consequence to align with research findings on behavior change and effective attendance and student engagement initiatives.
  
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  Require every school to have monthly attendance incentives and publicize positive attendance.
  

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  Provide “high-value” incentives for the highest-attending students and schools.
  

10. 
    Provide training to all school staff.
    

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  Provide training on school attendance policies, procedures, and responsibilities to all staff who affect attendance, and hold staff accountable for following them.
  
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  Ensure that attendance-office and other key school staff are trained to recognize and help highly mobile, homeless, or foster-care students stay enrolled in their current schools, to expe­dite enrollment changes when necessary, and to provide material supports and encourage­ment to enable regular attendance.
  
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  Provide professional development for principals and teachers to help them improve attendance.
  

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  Provide school-wide cross-training that emphasizes the importance of a welcoming and sup­portive climate, progressive discipline, and regular staff attendance.
  

11. 
    Address transportation and safety barriers so it is easier, safer, and quicker to get to school.
    

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  Provide easier and more frequent opportunities for parents and students to give feedback about transportation (public transit, for example) services and needs, such as adding a tex­ting or on-line complaint hotline or some questions to an annual school survey.
  
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  Work with public transit systems to change schedules and stops to promote school atten­dance and timeliness.
  
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  Secure corporate and other sponsors to provide transit passes to students attending schools in low-income areas.
  
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  Consider awarding different types of transit passes to students, varying the time, allow­able routes, and number of rides depending upon the student’s age, prior attendance, and school performance. This could include awarding unrestricted daily bus passes to very high-attending/performing high school students.
  
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  Develop more community watch, safe passage, and other programs that involve teachers, school staff, city government, community and faith-based organizations, parents, and fam­ily members in efforts to protect students on their way to and from school.
  
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  Solicit funding for a transportation system review to investigate creating alternative bus sys­tems, such as the network of mini-buses and hub-and-spoke system developed in Den­ver.
  

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  Implement a transportation texting campaign to gather more current information regard­ing public transportation service, and investigate the demand for and the cost of providing yel­low-bus service for the (few) sixth-grade students who have to transfer.
  

12. 
    Increase the role of the youth voice in schools and learn from youth how to improve attendance.
    

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  Establish forums, suggestion boxes, and listening tours to hear from students about what would help them get to school regularly and on time, and what would make them engage in their classes.
  
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  Involve students in the planning of transition plans, IEPs, school course selections, mid­dle and high school choices, and so on.
  
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  Ensure that an established student-governance structure exists at secondary schools.
  

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  Expand student school climate surveys to solicit suggestions about desired services, classes, and activities, and add a “What would make it more likely that you would come to school regularly?” question.
  

13. 
    Integrate the SARB process with the broader attendance initiative and utilize SARB referrals only after documented interventions have not worked and only in connection with mental health and other resource-based strategies.
    
14. 
    Refer truancy issues to law-enforcement agencies only as a last resort, and only if school staff can document multiple failed interventions.