The Baltimore City Student
Attendance Work Group
Coalition for Community Schools
2010 National Forum
Building Innovative Partnerships for Student Success
Thursday April 8, 2010
A Collaborative Effort
Work Group Co-Chairs:
Jonathan Brice, Executive Director of Student
Support - Baltimore City Public Schools,
Sabrina Sutton, Special Assistant to the Mayor, and
Jane Sundius, Director of Education and Youth –
OSI Baltimore
Key Partners:
Over 100 representatives of public schools, city
agencies, state agencies, universities, foundations,
public interest groups, program providers and
student organizations.
The Baltimore City Student
Attendance Work Group
The Work Group’s charge is to investigate
reasons for the high rates of student
absence from school.
Identify policies, practices and public, private
and community resources necessary to
dramatically increase the number of
children who attend school every day.
Why Focus on Student Attendance?
• Children’s attendance levels decline, on
average, as students progress through school
• Chronic absence as early as kindergarten is
predictive of future chronic absence and lower
academic achievement without interventions
• Poor student attendance predicts high school
dropout rates
Community and School Response
Baltimore City Public Schools
 Provide clear, targeted and consistent messaging about how
to measure attendance, why it is important, and expected
outcomes.
 Become advocates for the use of attendance as a respond
to indicator within City Schools and ensure that it informs
decision making and the response framework.
Individual Public School Leaders
 Ensure standard expectation is every student attends school
every day & when a student is absent there is a school level
response beginning with a call home.
 Monitor and use all attendance measures to inform school
attendance plan: chronic absence (early predictor), truancy
(legal), high attenders (tipping point), and attendance rate
(Adequate Yearly Progress).
Collecting and Monitoring Data On
Chronic absence
 Attendance is tracked daily and in secondary
schools by class in Baltimore City
 Attendance data is uploaded to the principal’s
dashboard weekly
 Principals have access to an alert list of students
on track to becoming chronically absent, a list of
students who were chronically absent in the
prior school year, and the school’s chronic
absence rate as compared to its own rate in the
prior school year
The role of Community Schools In Helping to
Address Chronic Absence
 Agree that an accountability outcome will be
improved student attendance
Through a team approach create attendance
targets based on the data either for the school as
a whole or for sub populations of students
Determine the number of students that
Community School providers will work to serve
Determine how the work will be measured
Record Community Schools efforts to improve
attendance
Tiered Strategies to Improve
Attendance
Tier 1 – Universal Strategies (for all students)
• Establish a school-going culture including. response to
each absence, welcoming back absent students,
communicating the importance of regular attendance to
the home.
• Utilize Global Connect or make phone calls home after
each absence
• Offer classroom attendance incentives for improved good
attendance
• Utilize school attendance incentives such as attendance
ceremonies, special trips for high attenders and rewarding
parents whose children regularly attend
Tiered Strategies to Improve
Attendance
Tier 2 – Intervention Strategies (for students who
miss 5 or more days of school)
• Refer a student with attendance problems to the SST
including all of the adults who touch the child’s life
(e.g. school nurse, after school providers, and the
community schools coordinator.)
• Assign special activities to increase at risk student’s
feeling of belonging
• Develop attendance plan with student & parents
• Provide the family with an alarm clock
• Refer to programs like Truancy Court or B-SMART
Tiered Strategies to Improve
Attendance
Tier 3 – Recovery Strategies (for students who are
missing at least 10% of their days on role)
• Involve external partners in the provision of needed
services such as mental health providers
• Conduct a home visit
• Refer the student to the Attendance Office
District Systems Reforms Affecting
Attendance
• Reforming school suspension policy
• Reducing the number of school
transitions by creating schools grades k8 and 6-12
• Increasing student and family options by
creating and supporting innovation,
contract, charter and transformation
schools
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Results to Date
• % Missing 20 or More Days of School
SCHOOL LEVEL
% Chronic
Absence
2006-7
% Chronic
Absence
2007-8
% Chronic
Absence
2008-9
ELEMENTARY GRADES
14.0
12.4
11.3
MIDDLE GRADES
33.7
27.0
18.6
HIGH SCHOOL
43.5
42.1
42.0
ALL CITY SCHOOLS
28.7
25.6
23.2
Results To Date
% Missing Fewer than 5 Days
SCHOOL TYPE
% High
Attenders
2006-7
% High
Attenders
2007-8
% High
Attenders
2008-9
ELEMENTARY GRADES
35.8
36.1
36.7
MIDDLE GRADES
21.2
26.8
33.1
HIGH SCHOOLS
16.0
18.1
17.1
ALL CITY SCHOOLS
25.6
28.0
26.7
Reflections
1. Everything matters a little bit.
2. So little attention has been paid to attendance that
there are many no- or low-cost interventions that can
be put in place.
3. Beware of tendency to solve chronic absence with
punitive action
4. Pay attention to punitive policies that reduce
attendance
5. Big improvements especially in low performing
districts require performance rubrics that include
attendance measures not just standardized test
scores.
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The Baltimore City Student
Attendance Work Group
Contact:
Sue Fothergill
Student Attendance Work Group
Coordinator
443-414-0236
attendancewg@gmail.com