Connecticut school cut chronic absenteeism with direct family reachouts

(NewsNation) — After changing the way it tracked absences across the district, a Connecticut school district has found success in cutting absences by effectively identifying chronically absent students and coming up with customized strategies to help address the root causes keeping kids out of school.

Like much of the rest of the country, Norwalk’s Ponus Ridge STEAM Academy middle school in Connecticut dealt with high rates of student absenteeism following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated disruptions in schooling.

“It was becoming clear that a lack of attendance was impacting our behaviors in school but also academics, right? If you’re not present in the seat, how can you be learning?” said Dean of Students Ashley Glaude.

The school decided to take aim at this problem with a multi-prong approach aimed at building connections with students’ families. It successfully brought down its chronic absenteeism rate from almost 32% to around 10% between the 2021-2022 school year and the 2022-2023 school year. (The state of Connecticut grants students nine excused or unexcused absences and absences after that are seen as impacting chronic absenteeism.)

The district first set out to collect more accurate data about what was actually happening in the school, changing the way students’ parents or guardians reported absences.

Ponus Ridge parents would email their absence instead of calling them in, making them easier to track. It allowed school officials to better identify the students who needed help improving their attendance

An attendance team of school counselors led by Glaude focused on students who were coming close to becoming chronically absent — those with seven or eight absences — and would reach out to their families with emails, phone calls or written letters.

Team members would check in with families and see if there are any needs that can be accommodated to help their kids start attending school more regularly.

In rare cases, the school would also make home visits.

A counselor and social worker can lead these visits where they do check-ins with the students’ parents or guardians.

“They literally go to the home and knock and the door and say, ‘Hey just checking in? How’s everything going? What can we help with? We’ve noticed you haven’t been in school,'” Glaude said.

On occasion, the school may also reach out to students to help with absenteeism. For instance, if multiple students reside at one address and one is coming to school and one isn’t, the one who is coming may be asked to call the one who isn’t.

Sometimes, the school may also bring a school resource officer on a home visit, who serves as an extra layer of authority who can be persuasive with parents or guardians.

The goal isn’t to be confrontational, but rather to build relationships and offer support.

Glaude offered the example of an eighth grader whose attendance issues were addressed by giving her accommodations that eased her anxiety about coming to school.

Those included breaks, access to in-school and out-of-school counseling, check-ins with trusted adults, and lunches with teachers.

The school has not totally nipped its attendance challenges in the bud, however. One persistent problem they face is how many students at the facility come from families with international backgrounds, who often travel out of the country to visit loved ones. This can drive up the number of unexcused absceneses around the holidays.

For school districts who may want to replicate Ponus Ridge’s strategy, Glaude’s biggest takeaway from the experience is the importance of approaching students and their loved ones in a compassionate way.

“If districts come at attendance in a punitive manner, it’s going to backfire. There’s a reason a student is not in school…. so work within your confines to help support that student and their family,” she said.