Reilly managed to slash his persistent absenteeism price in half to 25 p.c this previous 2024-25 yr. That’s nonetheless excessive. One in 4 college students missed greater than 18 days of college a yr. However, it’s higher.
He started by figuring out 150 youngsters who have been simply over the edge for persistent absenteeism, those that missed between 18 and 35 days, hoping that these youngsters could be simpler to lure again to highschool than those that have been extra disengaged. Reilly and a gaggle of directors and steerage counselors every took 10 to 15 college students and confirmed their households how a lot college that they had missed and the way low their grades have been. His workforce requested, “What do you want to ensure that your child to be coming to highschool?’”
The 2 most typical replies: transportation and meals.
Many college students lived solely a mile away, too shut to highschool to qualify for bus service. But the stroll deterred many, particularly if it was raining or snowing. Yellow buses usually handed these youngsters’s houses as they have been transporting youngsters who lived farther out, and Reilly satisfied the district so as to add stops for these chronically absent youngsters.
Ninety p.c of his college students come from households who’re poor sufficient to qualify for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program and 80 p.c are Hispanic. Though many youngsters have been fed breakfast and lunch in school, their households admitted that their youngsters would get so hungry over the weekend that they didn’t wish to get up and are available to highschool on Mondays. Reilly partnered with a meals pantry and despatched luggage of meat and pasta dwelling with college students on Fridays.
Particular person consideration additionally helped. Firstly of every college day, Reilly and his workforce verify in with their assigned college students. Children who present up get 5 “inexperienced bucks” to spend on snacks and prizes. Directors name the houses of those that didn’t come to highschool. “If they didn’t reply the telephone, we’d make a house go to,” stated Reilly.
Probably the most dramatic overhaul was scheduling. Reilly scrapped particular person schedules for college students and assigned 4 lecturers to each 104 college students. The children now transfer in pods of 26 that take all their courses collectively, rotating by the identical 4 lecturers all through the day. The school rooms are proper close to one another, making a smaller group throughout the college.
“It’s all about relationship constructing,” stated Reilly. When college students look ahead to seeing their classmates and lecturers, he stated, they’re extra motivated to return to highschool.
Researchers say fostering relationships is efficient. Hedy Chang, government director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit group that advises colleges on the best way to enhance attendance charges, stated it’s nonetheless a battle to steer college leaders (and college board members) that making college a extra welcoming place is extra productive than punishing youngsters and households for skipping college.
Reilly stated his college now posts the bottom pupil and instructor persistent absenteeism charges in Windfall. And he stated his college is the best performing center college within the metropolis and among the many highest statewide in studying.
New York Metropolis: Catching the butterflies
A cluster of New York Metropolis excessive colleges are taking a extra data-driven method, guided by New Visions, a consulting group that helps 71 metropolis excessive colleges.
After some experimentation, New Visions employees noticed sturdy enchancment in attendance in a single subgroup of scholars who have been on the cusp of lacking 10 p.c of college days, however had not but crossed the persistent absenteeism threshold. These are college students who may miss a day or two each week or each different week however have been comparatively engaged in school. Jonathan Inexperienced, a New Visions college enchancment coach who’s spearheading this effort, calls them “butterflies.” “They’d flutter out and in each week,” he stated.
Inexperienced urged that somebody in school meet weekly with these butterflies and present them their attendance information, set targets for the approaching week and clarify how their attendance was main to raised grades. The intervention took two to 5 minutes. “There have been marked adjustments in attendance,” stated Inexperienced.
New Visions constructed an internet site the place college directors may print out two-page paperwork for every pupil so the info, together with month-to-month attendance and tardiness, appeared in an easy-to-digest format. The fast conferences befell for eight to 10 weeks throughout the ultimate grading interval for the semester. “That’s when there’s probably the most alternative to show these probably failing grades into passing grades,” stated Inexperienced. “We have been discovering these candy spots throughout the college calendar to do that very excessive useful resource, high-energy intensive weekly check-in. It’s not one thing that anybody can simply scale throughout a college.”
Employees had to determine the bell schedule for every youngster and intercept them between courses. One succeeded in holding their total caseload of scholars under the persistent absenteeism threshold. Not everybody thought it was a good suggestion: Some college directors questioned why a lot effort ought to go into college students who weren’t but chronically absent quite than college students in larger bother.
The dramatic outcomes assist reply that query. Amongst colleges within the Bronx that volunteered to take part within the butterfly intervention, persistent absenteeism charges dropped 15 share factors from 47 p.c in 2021 to 32 p.c in 2025, nonetheless excessive. However different Bronx excessive colleges within the New Visions community that didn’t do that butterfly intervention nonetheless had a persistent absenteeism price of 46 p.c.
Inexperienced stated this resolution wouldn’t work for different excessive schoolers. Some have bother organizing their research time, he stated, and wish extra intensive assist from lecturers. “Two- to five-minute check-ins aren’t going to assist them,” stated Inexperienced.
Indianapolis: Biscuits and gravy
The chief of an Indiana constitution college advised me he used a system of rewards and punishments that lowered the persistent absenteeism price amongst his kindergarten by eighth graders from 64 p.c in 2021-22 to 10 p.c in 2024-25.
Jordan Habayeb, the chief working officer of Adelante Faculties, stated he used federal funds for the varsity breakfast and lunch program to create a made-from-scratch restaurant-style cafeteria. “Enjoyable reality: On selfmade biscuit and gravy days, we noticed the bottom charges of tardies,” he stated.
Researchers suggest avoiding punishment as a result of it doesn’t deliver college students again to highschool. However Habayeb stated he adheres strictly to state legislation that requires colleges to report 10 absences to the state Division of Baby Companies and to file a report with the county prosecutor. Habayeb advised me his college accounted for a fifth of truancy referrals to the county prosecutor.
The college created an automatic warning system after 5 absences quite than ready for the vital 10-day loss. And Habayeb stated he dispatched the security and attendance officer in a van to have “actual conversations with households quite than being buried in paperwork.” In the meantime, college students who did present up obtained a relentless stream of rewards, from locker decorations to T-shirts.
Guardian training was additionally necessary. Throughout necessary household orientations, the varsity illustrated how common attendance issues for even younger youngsters. “We shared what a baby may miss throughout a three-day stretch in a unit on ‘Charlotte’s Net’ — displaying how simply a pupil may go away with a totally totally different understanding of the e book,” stated Habayeb. “This helped shift views and introduced urgency to the difficulty.”
Kansas Metropolis: Sweet and notes
College leaders in Kansas Metropolis, Kansas, shared some ideas which have labored for them throughout a webinar earlier this month hosted by Attendance Works. One elementary college lowered its persistent absenteeism from 55 p.c in 2021 to 38 p.c in 2024 by assigning all 300 college students to an grownup within the constructing, encouraging them to construct an “genuine” relationship. Lecturers got an inventory of concepts however have been free to do what appeared pure. One instructor left sweet and notes on their assigned college students’ desks. A preschooler proudly pasted his observe, which stated he was a “genius,” on the entrance door of his home. “The grins youngsters have on their faces are wonderful,” stated Zaneta Boles, the principal of Silver Metropolis Elementary College.
When college students do miss college, Boles stated educators attempt to take a “non-blaming method” in order that households usually tend to expose what’s going on. That helps the varsity refer them to different group companies for help.
Albuquerque: A shining instance regroups
Alamosa Elementary College in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was as soon as a shining instance of a college that persuaded extra households to ship their youngsters to class. Power absenteeism fell as little as 1 in four college students in 2018, when The Hechinger Report wrote about the school.
However Alamosa has not been immune from the surge of absenteeism that has plagued colleges across the nation. Power absenteeism spiked to 64 p.c of scholars throughout the 2021-22 college yr, when Covid variants have been nonetheless circulating. And it remained shockingly excessive with 38 p.c of scholars lacking greater than 10 p.c of the 2024-25 college yr — precisely matching the 50 p.c enhance in persistent absenteeism throughout the nation since 2019.
“We have been on a roll. Then life occurred,” stated Daphne Strader, Albuquerque Public Faculties’ director of coordinated college well being, who works to cut back absenteeism.
Strader stated Alamosa and different Albuquerque colleges have made some profitable adjustments to how they’re tackling the issue. However the quantity of absenteeism stays overwhelming. “There’s so many youngsters who’ve wants,” Starder stated. “We’d like extra employees on board.”
Strader stated attendance interventions had been “too siloed” and so they’re focusing extra on the “entire youngster.” She’s encouraging colleges to combine attendance efforts with different initiatives to spice up educational achievement and enhance pupil habits. “College students are hungry, they’re dysregulated, they don’t have grit,” stated Strader, and all of those points are contributing to absenteeism. However she additionally concedes that some college students have extra extreme wants, and it’s unclear who within the system can handle them.
Her greatest recommendation for colleges is to give attention to relationships. “Relationships drive every thing,” stated Strader. “One of many main penalties of the pandemic was the isolation. If I really feel a way of belonging, I’m extra prone to come to highschool.”
