Boosting attendance at schools

District faces challenges to reduce chronic absenteeism and increase overall attendance

By DANIEL JOHNSON

INDEX-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Attendance improved by 55.1% among Sonoma Valley Unified School District students who participated in remedial conferences after having several unexcused absences in 2023, but challenges remain to reduce chronic absenteeism and increase overall attendance.

These were among the findings presented by the district’s Jillian Beall, director of educational services, student wellness and inclusion, and Treytcy DeHaro Martinez, an attendance and child welfare specialist, at the board of trustees meeting on Sept. 14.

During a PowerPoint presentation, they noted that 264 of the district’s students accumulated unexcused absences and participated in School Attendance Review Team (SART) problem-solving meetings at their school.

The 264 students had been absent 1,162 days, an average of 4.4 days per student, during the 2022-23 school year. In the six weeks following the conferences, the students were absent 522 days, an average of 2 days per student. Following the conferences, the absences fell by 55.1%.

SART meetings typically included the student, parents, a site administrator and community liaison, and sometimes also a counselor, psychologist, teacher, interpreter, and additional support staff.

“Students in our secondary schools attend the conferences so the team can begin to understand what barriers are happening as to why they are not attending school, such as health and transportation issues,” De-Haro Martinez said. “We then work together as a team to find

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the right resources and better support the family and student. The overall goal of the team is to identify possible solutions to improving attendance.”

Beall added, “Sometimes the plan works and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes there are very specific pieces of the plan that address it, but other times the plan doesn’t work, so we have to figure out other ways that we can best support the student.”

On another positive note, Sonoma Valley Unified School District’s overall student attendance improved to 92.6% in the 2022-23 academic year from 90.2% in 2021-22. The attendance rate ranged from a high of 97.5% for transitional kindergarten students to a low of 90.2% for 12th-graders.

The greatest improvement was made by 10thgraders, whose attendance increased 5.1%, to 91.9%.

“I was encouraged to see modest improvement in district attendance across all grade levels between 2021-22 and 2022-23,” said Anne Ching, president of the district’s board of trustees. “Moreover, I was also pleased to learn about the effectiveness of SART conferences on reducing school absences.”

On the other hand, perhaps largely due to the pandemic, chronic absenteeism — situations in which students miss at least 18 days in a school year — increased among Sonoma Valley Unified School District’s K-8 students in 2021-22 to 39.4% from 15.4% in 2020-21. By comparison, the 2021-22 rates were 50.1% in Cotati- Rohnert Park Unified School District and 30% in California school districts overall.

California School Dashboard data from 2022 includes the following demographic breakdown for chronic absentees among K-8 students in Sonoma Valley Unified School District: English learners, 44.2%; Hispanics, 41.4%; two or more races, 44.4%; socially disadvantaged students, 43.3%; students with disabilities, 46.8%; white students, 34.1%.

2023 Attendance Awareness Campaign

During the presentation, Beall also discussed national research on school attendance and Sonoma Valley Unified School District’s efforts to improve it.

Beall drew from 2023 key campaign messages provided by Attendance Works, a nonprofit initiative based in Oakland that collaborates with Sonoma Valley Unified School District and other districts, schools, states, communities and organizations nationwide.

The collaborations are intended to ensure that everyone recognizes that chronic absence is a serious issue that can be addressed using a positive, problem-solving approach grounded in an understanding of educational inequities.

“Attendance Works’ Attendance Awareness Campaign underlines the need for a supportive and caring response, with an emphasis on making students feel valued, and establishing trust-based relationships,” said Trustee John Kelly. “The campaign reiterates the importance of creating a secure, caring and engaging environment for learners.

In her presentation, Beall described four of the campaign’s main messages.

■ Regular attendance is essential, beginning in the early years of school.

■ When students are chronically absent, they are less likely to read proficiently by third grade, achieve in middle school and graduate from high school.

■ Chronic absence has more than doubled since the start of the pandemic, from 8 million to an estimated 16 million students nationwide. That’s one out of three students.

■ Monitoring absences is key to responding strategically to the academic and social losses experienced by millions of students.

“We know that there are several benefits to regular attendance,” Beall said. “We know that it helps kids get back on track and recover lost momentum and that it promotes student learning and increases chances of graduation. It also helps kids feel better about school and themselves and, of course, promotes mental health through socialization, developing friendships, building empathy and forming relationships with peers and adults.”

She also described six approaches that have been successful, according to Attendance Works' campaign: responding with support and care; prioritizing students belonging and building trusting relationships; ensuring students feel safe, cared for and connected; utilizing a positive problem-solving approach, driven by data; supporting the health and well-being of students, families and schools; and collaborating as a whole community with families and schools to overcome systemic barrier to attendance and engagement.

“Responding with care and inquiry and taking a problem-solving approach are going to best support our students and their families with increasing school attendance,” she said. “The approach in our district is that once you understand why your students are missing school, you may be able to provide solutions to best meet their needs.

“Every single situation is different, and every need is different. Our approach is to really get to know the individual situations so we can provide our best support.”

Trustee Celeste Winders said that many factors contribute to students being chronically absent, including their family’s housing situation and availability of food.

“I know that we’re always talking about attendance as a school issue and a district issue, but it’s really a community one,” she said.

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

Beall acknowledged this situation and said that Sonoma Valley Unified School District is implementing a Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) framework to address attendance problems.

Tier 1 strategies are intended to promote positive attendance and prevent absenteeism. One strategy is to utilize Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, an evidence-based framework for supporting students’ behavioral, academic, social, emotional and mental health.

The Tier 2 interventions individualize attention as well as engage and remove barriers to attendance. Interventions include School Attendance Team Problem Solving Meetings (SART) and consistent two-way family communication to build relationships, trust and communication.

Tier 3 provides collaborative problem-solving to remove barriers and provide intense support for students experiencing chronic absenteeism.

Beall said Sonoma Valley Unified School District intends to keep building safe, inclusive school climates that support the whole child and prioritize each student’s attendance, since it is directly linked with success in school.

“We will continue our proactive approach,” she said. “We know that it will be key to build safe, inclusive and welcoming environments for students where they belong. We’re going to continue to support students through the MTSS framework and make sure that we provide support through a multitiered system and take a collaborative and restorative problem-solving approach, knowing that it going to help us to really provide support and prioritize each individual.”

Ching said she wants to take the district’s analysis a step further by better understanding the roots of chronic absenteeism.

“I would like to understand whether a structural problem exists, such as access to transportation and/or after-school care,” she said.

“Furthermore, it is critical that we understand how mental health factors into the chronic absenteeism equation.

She noted that U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy stated in May that the country is in the midst of a national adolescent mental health crisis and social media plays a significant role in poor mental health outcomes, such as depression and anxiety.

“Until we address the root causes, we are unlikely to make a significant dent in the problem,” Ching said.

Beall acknowledged that despite recent improvements in attendance, the district still has work to do.

“Our absenteeism is still high,” Beall said. “It’s comparative with other school districts in our area as well as nationwide, but it is still high. So, it’s something we're working on and looking for continued ways in which we can progress.”

Martinez found a new, fun way to call attention to Attendance Awareness Month (September) this year. During Spirit Week (Sept. 11 to 15), she introduced a new feature throughout the district, consisting of a different “show up, dress up” theme each day that linked dress to attendance.

For example, on Pajama Day (Sept. 11), everyone was encouraged to “Come comfy and ready to learn!” while on Wacky Tacky Wednesday (Sept. 13), the message was, “There is nothing tacky about being on time! Wear tacky, mismatched outfits!”

“Spirit Weeks bring fun and happiness to students and staff, especially in elementary schools,” DeHaro Martinez said. “This year, I wanted to expand spirit week to be districtwide and focused on raising awareness on school attendance.

“We have families who shared with us that the spirit week provided them with an opportunity to bond with their children of all ages. Overall, we notice that school spirit can bring everyone together and lead to increased feelings of connection and belonging in the school and district community, which is what we want for everyone to feel they belong.”

Ching added, “I applaud Spirit Week activities like Pajama Monday and Wacky Tacky Wednesday to promote the importance of student attendance. Anything that makes school more inviting and welcoming to students will encourage engagement.” Reach the reporter, Dan Johnson, at daniel.johnson@ mailto:son@sonomanews.com sonomanews.com.