Partner with community-based organizations to deliver critical services, since districts and schools alone cannot reduce chronic absenteeism¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The brief argues that "Districts and schools alone cannot reduce chronic absenteeism—it really takes a collective," because community organizations bring cultural competency, capacity, and established trust. It profiles partners including faith-based organizations supporting attendance messaging, school-based health services such as nurses and centers like La Clínica offering preventative health, dental, and vision screenings, promotoras delivering health resources to Latine families' homes, Abriendo Puertas family engagement curriculum, and the Community Schools model integrating health care and other resources into schools as hubs for students and families.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Partners must be identified whose cultural competency and established trust with families supplement the work of districts and schools

Constraints¶

• The brief describes these partner models illustratively rather than reporting evaluated attendance outcomes for them

Target Learners¶

• English learners and immigrant families, including newcomers

Target Learning Goals¶

• Attendance and access to health and family support services that remove attendance barriers

Related Strategies¶

• Build shared districtwide and schoolwide responsibility for multilingual learners' attendance through a multitiered approach with a strong foundational tier
• Create positive, culturally inclusive, welcoming schools using strengths-based practices such as newcomer welcome centers, attendance cafés, and home-language-as-asset approaches
• Culturally appropriate Tier 1 attendance supports: recognize good and improved attendance, hold regular check-ins, and adapt school calendars
• Implement a tiered, prevention-first approach to reducing chronic absence that invests in positive conditions for learning
• Partner with tribal governments to remove attendance barriers through staff expertise, transportation, and health and social services
• Health plans can actively partner with schools by directing networked providers to school-based activities, providing TA, placing care coordinators on campus, and funding prevention through grant-making
• Partner with immigrant-serving community-based organizations to engage linguistically diverse families and sustain feedback loops

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Gisela Ariza, Attendance Works; Hedy Chang, Attendance Works. (2024). Supporting Success: Attendance Solutions for Multilingual Students. WestEd. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED663795