MTSS Corner: 4 EOY Planning Strategies to Create a Welcoming School Culture Next Year
As the 22-23 school year comes to a close, it’s a great time to consider the big picture strengths and growth areas of your attendance intervention systems. What shifts would be helpful for the school year ahead? How are underlying factors such as school culture impacting student attendance?
Research shows there is a strong link between school climate and strong attendance. As you prepare for the year ahead, here are four strategies to leverage to make your school a place that students want to be every day:
- Use a standardized tool such as a rubric or survey to evaluate school climate.
Gather feedback from students, staff, and families in order to identify the strengths and growth areas in your school culture. Check out the resources provided by the National School Climate Center and Attendance Works to learn more.
- Analyze key attendance indicators from the 22-23 school year.
During an end-of-year meeting with your school attendance team, review attendance rates and chronic absenteeism rates broken down by grade level, month, and student subgroups. Reflect on which attendance systems and interventions have been helpful, and which improvements are most crucial for the coming school year. This rubric can help you evaluate your school-wide attendance program and select your areas of focus for the year ahead.
- Create a summer break strategy that fosters ongoing connection with students and families.
Consider using practices such as home visits or letters and phone calls to reach out and engage students and families who were chronically absent during the 22-23 school year. This summer outreach can lay the foundation for a stronger sense of connection and more consistent attendance for the year ahead. For more information about launching home visits at your school site, take a look at these resources from Parent Teacher Home Visits.
- Develop your school climate and attendance vision and strategy for the 22-23 school year.
Create or update documents that set out a clear vision and goals for your school’s climate, including goals related to student attendance. Use these goals to create an implementation plan, focusing on 3-5 growth areas for the year ahead.
While some attendance strategies can be implemented after you return in the fall, consider making detailed plans for your Back to School Attendance Campaign before the school year ends, so that all plans and materials are ready to go when your team returns from break.
Planning out your attendance systems and supports will require rallying some focus and determination during this very busy time of year. But creating a solid game plan now will allow you and the rest of your attendance team to go into summer break ready for some much-deserved rest, confident that you are ready for a great year ahead.
Looking for more MTSS resources to support your team’s attendance efforts? Check out EveryDay Pro, the MTSS platform that makes it easy to understand and act on attendance.