Low Lift Tips to Start the Year
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Hello and welcome back! Our team at OSPI has curated the attendance resources that are especially helpful right now in these first few weeks of school. Individually, these actions are minimal lifts, collectively they will start to build a foundation towards strong attendance and engagement. |
Our focus is on Building a Culture of Attendance. What does this mean? A culture of attendance is when a school universally communicates to families and students about the importance of attendance, why we want students to attend, how they will benefit when they attend, and the support they will receive when they experience barriers to attending.
A Culture of Attendance includes these key features:
- Students and families know that your school community values attendance and why.
- The school provides messaging in a supportive and welcoming tone, is strengths-based, avoids shaming and punitive approaches, and embodies the OSPI Attendance Guiding Principles.
Read more here...
- Attendance and engagement are foundational to student learning
- Absences tells us when a student has not accessed instruction
- Absences are a critical early warning indicator that:
- can reflect inequities that are caused by or perpetuated by our systems or
- when a student and family might need more support
- We have an opportunity to get curious about why students aren’t attending
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Students and families are our best partners to understand the barriers to attendance
- Schools and districts have lots of opportunity for prevention and intervention before involving the court
Raise awareness about attendance and address common reasons for absences at the beginning of the year by sharing these 4 resources with families!
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- Beginning of the year attendance letter
- Anxiety and school avoidance resources
- Health guidelines on when to stay home
- Immunization information
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NEW! Beginning of the Year Letter (OSPI Template)
OSPI has updated our beginning of the year Attendance Letter Template for school districts to send to parents. It contains the information about attendance required by law in RCW 28A.225.005. Adapt this template to make it your own.
Anxiety & School Avoidance
While returning to school can be an exciting for many students, it can also be a nerve-wracking time for others. Consider sharing this resource with families at the beginning of the year to build strategies to manage the anxiety while attending school.
When to Stay Home Sick
Share updated health guidance from your district and local health jurisdiction that let's parents and students know when they should stay home if they are sick and when they should come to school after having symptoms.
Immunizations
The beginning of the year is a time when families learn that they must update their child's vaccinations. This can be a barrier to student attendance. You can get ahead of this by sharing local and state resources before the school year starts with families on how to get immunized.
Build attendance awareness with a key activities
September is Attendance Awareness Month, but we also know this is a year-long effort. Raising awareness can include a few simple strategies:
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 The strongest predictor of absences is previous absences. You can get ahead of supporting your students' engagement this year, by identifying the students that were chronically absent last year, and setting up a communication and support plan for them right at the beginning of the year.
Here's what that could look like:
- Pull the list of chronically absent students from last year (students that missed 10% or more of their school days, excused and unexcused. If students missing 10% is too many students for your staff capacity, try a different threshold (15% or 20%).
- Ask your teachers to do some personal outreach to these students. (Tip: provide them a script to make it easier!).
- Send a postcard home specific to them, sharing how excited you are for them to start school this year.
- Recruit some older students to commit to reaching out and connecting with these students on a weekly basis.
- Celebrate the small wins! When students attend and keep attending, let them know you've noticed with positive reinforcement.
Did you miss our webinar in June? Here's another chance to join.
The beginning of the school year is a critical time to revisit your district's withdrawing policies and processes; this is a time when many districts may remove students within the first few days of school. This updated guidance clarifies that districts are not required to do this for CEDARS or Apportionment reasons.
This webinar will review the newly updated 2024-25 CEDARS Guidance on withdrawing students and is a collaboration between OSPI’s Attendance, Student Information, and Apportionment teams.
OSPI has updated the Attendance Webpages! Please check out the new resources here:
Are you new to truancy?
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Here are some key resources to help you get started:
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Update your District Truancy Liaison Contact and CEB Information
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All school districts are required to designate and identify a person or persons to coordinate school district efforts to address excessive absenteeism and truancy to the OSPI (RCW 28A.225.026).
Please make sure your district's contact is up to date!
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Join the OSPI Truancy & Attendance Learning and Knowledge Sharing (T.A.L.K.S) Series!
T.A.L.K.S provides a space for district attendance and truancy liaisons to connect, receive support and share insights on truancy. Liaisons will also receive key information on implementing Tier III strategies, valuable resources and tools to support your work.
This series is a new opportunity for district attendance and truancy liaisons across the state.
Starting in September on the 17th, we will meet every other month on the third Tuesday from 12-1 pm.
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When a student is absent due to non-compliance with immunization requirements, should they be marked excused or unexcused?
While state law and rule do not specify that an absence due to noncompliance with immunization should be excused or not, OSPI recommends that districts excuse the absences while the child remains enrolled and the family and district work to get the child immunized according to state requirements.
Read the complete answer to this question in the OSPI Attendance & Truancy FAQ. Find other immunization resources on the OSPI Immunization webpage.
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OSPI Attendance Team has a new voicemail to answer your attendance questions.
Please reach out to the OSPI Attendance Team by dialing 360-725-4957. Leave a voicemail with your name, email address, and inquiry. A team member will follow up with you within two business days.
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OSPI Attendance Team has a new voicemail to answer your attendance questions.
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