MTSS Corner: Tier II Tips for More Efficient Attendance Interventions

Looking at attendance data can be overwhelming, especially if there are a large number of students in your school or district who are chronically absent. However, addressing chronic absenteeism can be more manageable by using a tiered intervention approach. Implementing a district-wide mail and text intervention like EveryDay Intervention is a great way to support all students at Tier I. Building upon that, a tiered approach also allows further efficiency with a focus on creating group interventions, instead of making individualized attendance plans for each student who is struggling to consistently attend school.

Here’s a simple process for creating group interventions to maximize your time and impact:

1. Identify students who are missing 10-19% of school days. 

You can use your SIS or an attendance analytics tool like EveryDay Pro to quickly identify which students would most benefit from targeted interventions. Dig into these students’ attendance patterns and trends with our Tier II Data Analysis resource. These are students who might be missing just 2-3 days per month, and are likely not on anyone’s radar yet. This is why it’s essential to analyze this data on a regular (at least monthly) basis. 

2. Find out what barriers to attendance these students are experiencing.

By speaking with their teachers, or using a tool such as the Barrier Assessment to connect with the family, you can determine the root causes of why each student is struggling to attend regularly. It’s key to document this data so that you can efficiently group students based on the barriers they are experiencing. EveryDay Pro features a barrier tracking tool to easily track this information for each student, and this blog post provides more guidance on determining attendance barriers. 

3. Work with your Attendance, PBIS, and/or MTSS teams to create targeted intervention groups.

Unlike academic intervention groups, it’s probably not necessary for students in these groups to meet/receive services in a group setting. Instead, think of these groups as a way to efficiently decide how you will connect students to relevant services and supports. For example, if you identify a handful of students who need support with transportation, you can create a cohesive plan for collaborating with these families to address their transportation needs. For students who may be missing school due to a lack of connection on campus, you can create a system for efficiently providing the CICO (Check In/Check Out) intervention. By tackling student attendance needs in groups (rather than on a purely case-by-case basis) you’ll be able to provide a wider range of supports and services more quickly.

4. Check on attendance progress every four weeks and adjust interventions as necessary.

Rather than trying to keep track of each student’s progress individually, set up a monthly routine in which you review attendance for the students in each intervention group. This makes managing the attendance interventions more sustainable, and can allow you to identify improvements as well as determine which students may need more intensive and individualized interventions.

Whether you are supporting a robust and highly developed attendance program, or are just beginning to create the foundation for a system of interventions and supports, we hope these resources will help you provide more efficient and sustainable attendance interventions to the students and families you work with. Visit our website for more information about how you can use EveryDay Pro to efficiently design and implement attendance interventions and improve student outcomes.