DPS Guidance

Evidence-Based Model for School Attendance Systems

This model is a visual about the need for Daily Attendance Practices, a comprehensive Attendance Team, Foundational Supports that Promote Positive Conditions for Learning (Safe & Welcoming Schools), Tier 1 Universal Strategies, and Targeted Tier 2 and Intensive Tier 3 Interventions.

This is a visual about how these six components work together. For any of the specific attendance tiers to be super successful, they all need to be surrounded by Daily Attendance Best Practices and coordinated by the Attendance Team, as well as being grounded in the school’s Foundation Supports that promote positive conditions for learning. A school can have the BEST Tier 2 interventions that are completely grounded in research to get a student back in school regularly, but if the classroom environment is not engaging or meeting the student’s needs, it will be really hard to keep that student attending regularly.

FYI Documents:

• School Attendance Team Guide and Interventions Best Practices, updated for 2024-25
  
  
• Glossary of Attendance Terms
  
  
• Guidance on Excused Absences
  
  
• Attendance Team Roles, Responsibilities and Limitations

Tools:

• Attendance Team Meeting Recommended Agenda
  
  
• Yearlong Attendance Activities Planning Tools (from Attendance Works)
  
  
• Yearlong Attendance Planner (DPS)
  
  
• Sample slide deck for presenting attendance information
  
  
• Tiered Checklist for Students with Low Attendance
  
  

Daily Attendance Practices

To ensure that attendance systems are set up to successfully address attendance, they must be grounded in Daily Attendance Practices. These practices are critical to ensure that data and other attendance habits are accurate.

• Make sure that attendance is taken within the first 10 minutes of each class.
• Ensure that all teachers take and update attendance and tardies consistently throughout the day.
• Document and clear out attendance voicemails and parent online absence requests within the first hour of each school day.
  • Family information as to how to enter online absence requests
• Follow district guidance around excused absences.
• Use tardy and absence codes according to district guidance. Use the code in the IC Data Dictionary that most closely matches the parent reason for absence.
• use the Kiosk *OR* the Attendance Wizard Check-In / Check-Out features to accurately record students who arrive late or leave early.
  • The "Kiosk" can be a chromebook, tablet, scanner or 10 key. No special equipment is required.
  • The Kiosk is a way for students or families to quickly enter the arrival time and reason.
  • How to launch the kiosk Quick Reference Guide
  • Once the kiosk has been launched, here is how to process the check-in/check-out Quick Reference Guide
  • For Elementary Schools: How to process a student when the student checks in on the kiosk after the teacher has taken attendance: Quick Reference Guide
• Monitor student attendance during the day, especially after transition periods. Use the IC Daily Attendance Processing feature.
• If a student who was present earlier in the day is now marked absent, inform the school leadership team about the student.
• Consider the use of the Hall Pass feature in IC to limit student passes out of class.
  • School leaders, counselors, and front office professionals already have the ability to create and manage passes, view students on pass and administer passes. SSPs, paraprofessionals and nurses share these capabilities. Once passes are created, teachers can assign them using the roster feature within IC.
• Ensure that EVERY absence gets a response, including excused and unexcused absences.

Tiered Attendance System Approach

• Reducing Student Absenteeism (from EdResearch for Action)
• Attendance Playbook (from FutureEd and Attendance Works)
• Tiered Approach Overview & Definitions (from Attendance Works)

Effectiveness Rubrics

• System/Team Effectiveness Self-Assessment
• Attendance Practices Effectiveness Self-Assessment

School Exemplars

• Goldrick Elementary School Attendance Handbook
• McMeen Elementary School Attendance Action Plan
• Legacy Options High School Attendance Policy