In an effort to encourage student attendance, Indian Prairie School District 204 is working on some revisions to how student absences are logged and how the district communicates with families about their children’s attendance going forward.
Included in the changes are the elimination of “vacation” as an option for parents to select when a student is absent, and the use of proactive alerts to families about how many absences a student has accumulated.
Student attendance rates at District 204 have generally outpaced the state average in recent years, according to a district presentation. Indian Prairie has, over the past four years, hovered around 93-94% student attendance, compared to around 91% statewide.
Nevertheless, attendance in the district has not quite rebounded since the COVID-19 pandemic, with attendance rates still about 1% lower than before COVID, the presentation indicated.
Recent figures, however, put the district in “striking distance” of those pre-COVID levels, District 204 Deputy Superintendent Louis Lee said at last Tuesday’s school board meeting, at which the district’s efforts to boost attendance were discussed.
Speaking to the importance of attendance to things like college and career readiness, Sarah Mumm, the district’s director of research and assessment, emphasized last Tuesday that the district is looking to reinforce to the school community the positive benefits of attendance, rather than framing absence punitively. The district is also focusing on what needs a student or family has and looking at what support the district can provide via internal resources or external partnerships.
Among the changes coming to the district are revisions to the district’s interface for parents to report absences.
Mumm said the district is working to standardize the different absence codes families select on the district’s system, ParentVUE, when their student is going to be absent.
One major change will be the removal of the “vacation” code as an option for families to select, Mumm said, in an effort to encourage families to schedule vacation only on breaks and long weekends, not during days where school is in session.
The codes available for families to select as reasons for their child’s absence will now include “family related,” “illness,” “professional care,” “mental health day,” “religious observance” and “college visit,” according to Mumm. If a valid excuse is not provided within 48 hours, a student absence is considered “truant.”
The district is making a video for parents so they can see how the revised interface works, Mumm said at last week’s meeting. She noted that each absence code will also have a definition so families know what to select, and that parents have the opportunity on the system to give a rationale for why they selected a particular code and to upload a document like a doctor’s note.
The district is also going to be sending out standardized alerts to families about student absences as a means to inform families more proactively.
Automated messages will be sent to parents when a student has missed five days of school, followed by another message at nine days, explained Janine Wange, who works as the district’s positive engagement and student support coach.
The idea for the day five message is to be a “supportive, informational and non-disciplinary communication method,” Wange said, to ensure parents know how many days their child has missed.
The nine-day message, however, is “a little more urgent in nature,” Wange said. It provides a warning that, starting on day 10, any absences without an official medical or legal documentation will be considered unexcused. A digital questionnaire will also be sent along with the nine-day warning notice.
Additionally, the district will be sending out periodic, district-wide messages related to attendance, per last Tuesday’s presentation.
District administrative teams were made aware of the planned changes in July, said Matthew Walker, a school counselor at Waubonsie Valley High School. Trainings have already been offered for support staff like nurses, attendance secretaries and deans’ assistants, and staff will be learning about the revisions from their administrative teams for the start of the school year.
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Going forward, Walker said, the district is going to be periodically reviewing the data it gets from these changes and how much engagement district attendance-related messages receive.
At last week’s meeting, school board member Susan Taylor-Demming and board president Laurie Donahue both commended the positive framing focused on attendance, and pointed to the importance of attendance at all grade levels, even the younger grades.
Asked by board member Mark Rising which level has the most issues with absenteeism, Lee said that, while overall attendance levels are close to before COVID-19, issues are the largest at the elementary level.
Rising also suggested that nine days is late for addressing absenteeism.
Board members also inquired about certain aspects of the changes and the district’s policies.
Member Natasha Grover asked whether the selected reason for a student’s absence is kept private, noting, for example, that parents may be hesitant to select a “mental health day” for their child.
Walker explained that it’s an internal code that does not get distributed externally, and it is meant in part to provide support. As a counselor, if a student is absent for that reason, he would do a follow-up with a student or work with his team to determine whether the student has been heard from or if something is going on.
And board vice president Allison Fosdick asked what the district does after a student accrues nine absences and absences are deemed “unexcused” by default.
Walker said it depends on the level. For high school, he explained, an unexcused absence means a student is not allowed to turn in work for that day or make up that work.
Board member Andrew Bernard, meanwhile, inquired about the vacation coding, asking what’s stopping parents from marking a vacation as a different code.
Lee said nothing is stopping them, essentially, but the district is hoping the new messaging makes clear the district’s view that vacations during school aren’t acceptable.
More broadly, Bernard also asked about what efforts there are, other than not letting a student make up work, to encourage attendance.
Walker said that, at Waubonsie, he started an attendance group focused on “connection.”
“Connection gets these kids to school,” Walker said. “Knowing that somebody is waiting for them, knowing that somebody cares about them.”