A California Middle School Addresses Chronic Absenteeism

In this article in Principal Leadership, Robert Balfanz and Hedy Nai-Ling Chan say that a school can average 95 percent attendance and yet have 25 percent of students who are chronically absent. “That level of absenteeism not only affects the students who miss class but also creates a kind of classroom churn that makes it harder for teachers to teach and other students to learn,” they say. 

In a sidebar, Cliff Hong, principal of an Oakland, California middle school, tells how he and his staff reduced their chronic absence rate from 15 to 8 percent in 2011-12, which contributed to a surge in achievement: the school’s Academic Performance Index rose 30 points, the biggest improvement of any Oakland USD middle school. Here’s what they did:

• Organized an attendance team consisting of the principal, an attendance clerk, a family liaison, a school nurse, the head of socio-emotional services, and a graduate intern.
• Set goals – An average of 95 percent attendance and no chronic absence, and no major differences in attendance rates among the school’s three largest ethnic groups (Black, Asian Pacific Islander, and Latino).
• Met every two weeks to discuss the cases of chronically absent students and identify the reasons – Transportation? Illness? Other reasons?
• Assigned an appropriate team member to follow up with each student and the family – for example, the nurse took students whose absences were primarily health-related.
• For students whose attendance didn’t improve, the principal and attendance clerk held face-to-face meetings with the student and a parent or guardian to lay out expectations and get signatures on an improvement plan.
• At assemblies, presented certificates to students with good attendance and improved attendance.

“Improve Attendance: Increase Success” by Robert Balfanz and Hedy Nai-Lin Chang in in Principal Leadership, November 2013 (Vol. 14, #3, p. 20-24), www.nassp.org 

From the Marshall Memo #511