Addressing Absenteeism
How our school is changing a withdrawal process in
order to improve attendance and engagement.
Devon Johnson | Concordia University | Policy and Process in Practice
Who we are, and what attendance looks
like
• Oregon Connections Academy is a public virtual charter school serving a diverse
group of students all over the state of Oregon.
• 45% of the population is economically disadvantaged*
• 13 different languages are spoken among our student body*
• 14% of our students claim a disability*
• Our current regular attendance rate is 76.4%*, and Oregon’s current rate of
chronic absenteeism is 19.7% (Manning, 2017)
(*Oregon Department of Education, 2017)
• Oregon Department of Education has set a goal for schools to achieve 95%
attendance.
• Attendance is collected by the number of student-teacher interactions per week:
student and teacher phone calls, students attending live online lessons, or
students sending academic emails to their teachers. Two student-teacher
interactions per week is the equivalent of one full week of student attendance.
The Decision to Change
⮚This school year, 2018 – 2019, the administrative staff made the decision to change the
process of administratively withdrawing students who have been absent (no studentteacher interactions) for 10 school days. Now our policy is to count interactions
happening later in the week as back-dated interactions for that same week which will
result in partial attendance credit, allowing them to remain enrolled.
⮚The High School administration team used Measure 98 funds to hire a Student
Engagement Advisor, Student Engagement Administrator, and School Non-Academic
Support person to address absenteeism and re-engage students who are at risk of
being withdrawn and improve graduation rates.
⮚Resources are also being used to investigate whether absenteeism is becoming a
problem due to errors in logging interactions between students and teachers.
The Issues to Consider
✔ Stakeholders can view this adaptation as enabling students.
o By extending the deadline for an administrative withdrawal due to absenteeism, the High School
Success Team is giving students who likely have other life challenges every opportunity to succeed.
However, many educators see this as a waste of time and resources when not every student has
been given this many chances.
✔Families could be abusing the government assistance programs by having students
enrolled and not attending school.
o Families facing financial challenges are offered cash assistance when they have a student (or
students) enrolled in school (Oregon Center for Public Policy, 2018). However, enrollment is the
only qualification so families are able to keep receiving assistance even if their student is chronically
absent or truant.
✔ Resources are being used to fight truancy and absenteeism when they could be used
for professional development or more content.
o Content teachers are fighting for time and resources to use toward meeting standardized test results
while needing the support that is going elsewhere, with no guarantee of re-engaging these students.
The Stakeholders
⮚ORCA Teachers.
• Teachers had a voice in this, because we are using their time and efforts to reach out above and beyond what
they are already expected to do for attendance interactions. To ensure a student avoids a withdrawal, a
content-area teacher needs to have an academic contact with the student. Often, this happens on days when
teachers are already busy with other work and is inconvenient for them to change their schedule.
⮚ORCA Students.
• Students are affected greatly by this, hopefully for the positive. If we are successfully able to re-engage
students, they face less consequences of absenteeism such as achievement gap and lower graduation rates
(National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention, 2012).
⮚ORCA Administrators.
• Administrators, whether the regular school administrators or the High School Success administration team, are
taking on more responsibility of contacting these students throughout the process. They are heavily involved in
the process to re-engage and prevent truancy and keep absenteeism and truancy caseloads to a minimum
unless they are necessary.
⮚ORCA Caretakers and Families.
• Families of ORCA students benefit from our new policy by having more time to find ways to have their student
interact and avoid withdrawal. Truancy can result in consequences such as a fine for the guardians, loss of
student drivers license, and even the suspension of government benefits.
The Process
❖Improving our data logging system along with teacher communication and utilizing correct information
to create an Early Warning System. Alerting students, parents, and teachers of the need for interactions
on day 6 of absence.
❖Hire advisors and administrators whose sole purpose is to monitor attendance, communicate with
students and families, and re-engage the students who are disengaging from school.
❖After teachers have initiated contact with an absent student, administrators and advisors will continue
to monitor interactions until it becomes regular. If contacts are made on a Thursday or Friday of the
week, those will retroactively mark the student present for the earlier days of the week – essentially
moving them to a new “day 10” of absence. No contacts made from the day 6 mark up until day 10 will
result in an administrative withdraw from Oregon Connections Academy, as per usual.
❖Throughout this entire process, advisors and the High School Success team are liaising between
students and teachers to ensure that interaction data is correct and creating opportunities for
attendance interactions to happen.
The Rationale and Evidence
Missing school due to administrative withdrawal can have lifelong consequences for the student.
• Missing school on top of likely difficult life circumstances can make it overwhelming and almost
impossible for students to catch up.
• Broadens the already-wide achievement gap.
• Lack of school success leads to a higher probability of school drop-out.
Administratively withdrawing and re-enrolling students affects our school.
• It is time-consuming and costly for teachers, administrators, and support staff to do administrative
work that could have been avoided.
• When students withdraw and re-enroll often, not only is their education compromised, but it
reflects on us as a school as their test scores are likely lower and graduation rates are susceptible to
suffer.
(Ahmad & Miller, 2015)
Benefits vs. Limitations
Benefits of the new withdrawal policy and student engagement:
✔Students are less likely to “slip through the cracks due to correct data and logging and personal
engagement.
✔Families get more personal attention and many are referred to social services when they may have
never gotten noticed before.
✔Teachers are made more aware of which students are becoming/have become disengaged and initiate
more personal interactions with them.
Limitations of our policy and resources:
⮚Our High School Success team is small and the caseload is already growing for the early warning
system.
⮚There is no guarantee that reaching out to students and families personally will re-engage the student in
school.
Recommendations
Professional development for teachers, advisors, counselors, and administrators of ORCA.
⮚Because there are differences between absenteeism and truancy, and their causes are often underlying,
it is important for all educational staff to know the difference and know what to look for in students who
might otherwise just appear as “absent.”
Expanding the High School Success Team by including advisors and counselors to help offer
resources and support to students and families nearing the attendance.
⮚Collaboration among a team with vast knowledge, resources, and experience will provide students and
families with a comprehensive, personal, and research-based plan to find success in school.
Creating ORCA community awareness about the attendance policy and expectations by creating
infographics to be mailed, online newsletters, and engaging videos to educate families of the
policies and resources of our school.
⮚One of the biggest challenges to preventing absenteeism and withdrawal in an online school is that
parents are simply uninformed of the policies. Handbooks and pages of online resources are given to
each family, but creating simple and easy-to-understand resources that clearly define our attendance
expectations will alleviate a lot of the unnecessary administrative work that goes into attendance
communications and monitoring.
References
Ahmad, F., & Miller, T. (2015, August) The high cost of truancy. Retrieved from
https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/29113012/Truancy-report4.pdf
Graduation Improvement. (n.d.) Oregon Department of Education. Retrieved from
https://www.oregon.gov/ode/students-and-family/GraduationImprovement/Pages/HSS.aspx
Manning, R. (2017, October 20). Oregon Students Still Missing A Lot Of School, 10 Months Into Absence Plan.
Retrieved from https://www.opb.org/news/article/oregon-students-absenteeism-absence-plan/
National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention . (2012, February). Truancy Prevention
Efforts in School-Community Partnerships. Retrieved from
http://www.promoteprevent.org/sites/www.promoteprevent.org/files/resources/Truancy%20Prevention%20Efforts%2
0in%20School_0.pdf
Oregon Center for Public Policy. (2018, February 5). Eroding Cash Assistance Puts Oregon Children at Risk.
Retrieved from https://www.ocpp.org/2018/02/05/fs20180205-tanf-grant-amount/
Oregon Department of Education. (2017). Oregon Connections Academy Oregon Report Card [Data file].
Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/Connections/Downloads/1617-ReportCard-4399.pdf