Improving Chronic Absenteeism Starts with Timely Data
At a minimum, we know that chronic absenteeism is itself a useful early-warning flag for subsequent academic and social problems. Everything we can do to help children read proficiently by the 3rd grade will improve their chances of success in later years. One thing we do know is that:
Routine, weekly monitoring provides an effective early-warning system.
"Our middle school began to examine data on attendance, tardiness and discipline on a weekly basis, which allowed us to act quickly to what the data were telling us. After five months, that school's tardiness rate dropped in half and regular attendance rose 2% percent overall. We've developed a menu of responses we can control, but we've also reached out to social-service partners to help us with serious home-based issues. After all, a warning system is only as good as the interventions triggered by those warnings. We're going to start weekly tracking in the elementary schools where we expect the impact to be even greater."
Dr. Frances Gallo, Superintendent of Central Falls Schools
