When DeSoto Parish Schools Superintendent Clay Corley saw that his students were missing school more often after the pandemic, his district searched for ways to remedy the issue.
Teachers began to offer small perks for kids with good attendance, like extra recess or a “free dress” day where they don’t have to wear uniforms.
And because the district was already collecting student attendance data to send to the state daily, officials decided to make every school's attendance rate public. The data is now posted online on a dashboard modeled after a baseball scoreboard, a way of fostering friendly competition among schools.
"The data matters," Corley said. "So we felt it was important to share that.”
Now, state officials are pushing more schools to take a similar approach to drive down absenteeism by tracking student data while also making school a place where kids want to be.
Chronic absenteeism, or the share of students who miss at least 10% or more of a school year, surged after the pandemic. But as some parts of the country started to see a decline in absenteeism, Louisiana’s student absenteeism rate grew to 23% by 2022-23 — an increase over the previous school year and nearly double the pre-pandemic rate. (Statewide numbers for the 2023-2024 school year have not yet been released.)
To tackle the issue, the state convened the Success Through Attendance Recovery (STAR) Task Force, a team made up of education experts and officials charged with analyzing state attendance data and offering solutions to address barriers that can keep students out of school.
State officials said that students’ academic outcomes won’t improve until attendance does.
“If the kids aren’t in school, what kind of education could they possibly be getting?” said Ronnie Morris, chair of the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and a task force member.
A strategy for drawing students to school
Chronic absenteeism has been tied to a number of negative educational outcomes for students, including low literacy and graduation rates.
Louisiana’s attendance task force previously recommended that districts submit attendance data to the state regularly. During its June meeting, the group focused on district and school-level actions to reduce absenteeism.
Shelneka Adams-Marsalone, child welfare and attendance liaison for the Louisiana Department of Education, said the state is encouraging schools to take a proactive approach to improving attendance. On one hand, they should work to make students feel welcomed and excited to show up to class, she said. On the other, they should closely monitor attendance data and intervene at the first signs of trouble.
According to Adams-Marsalone, the model aims to improve attendance by personalizing support for students based on how many absences they’ve accrued.
The first step focuses on cultivating a welcoming school environment.
“That’s how you’re creating a culture for your school,” Adams-Marsalone said. “Making students feel like they belong, having families feel like they’re connected.”
The second part of the strategy is geared toward students who have missed between three and nine days of school. School staffers look for clues in the data about what’s causing the absences, such as health challenges or housing instability.
The third component focuses on students with the most severe attendance problems, who have missed 20% or more days. The model says school staffers should use an individualized approach for each student while sending positive encouragement to families and giving students incentives to come to class.
Though the model remains in its pilot phase, officials are encouraging local education leaders to incorporate aspects into their own attendance policies and practices.
“We want to hear what’s happening with you and how we can help," said BESE member and task force chair Sharon Clark.
Schools try a new approach to improving attendance
Some districts already are trying new ways to get kids back in the classroom, from working closely with parents to offering rewards for students who come to school.
At the start of last school year, the Baker School District became one of the first in the state to partner with the state department of education and LSU to test out the model.
As part of the pilot program, the university worked with the school district to build attendance leadership teams, overhaul its data systems and partner with school leaders to come up with preventative strategies.
After one year, the district managed to improve its daily attendance rate from 70% to 90%.
Corley, the DeSoto Parish superintendent, said his district’s attendance dashboard has become a “motivating factor” spur competition among schools.
Since implementing several new strategies over the last few years, Corley’s district has managed to bring its attendance rates nearly back to pre-pandemic levels.
“To me, it’s an ‘and’ approach, not an ‘or’ approach,” he said. “There are a lot of things that have to happen to move the needle.”
Louisiana not alone in trying to drive down absenteeism
The state’s strategy is in line with what the Biden administration called for earlier this year when it announced a new effort to improve attendance after the pandemic.
In May, President Biden called on schools and communities to cultivate a “culture of attendance.” In particular, he said districts should communicate with families about the importance of getting their kids to school and should track student absences in real time, allowing them to intervene when challenges occur.
A report released this week by the national nonprofit Attendance Works examined state-by-state attendance policies and offered suggestions for improvement.
The suggestions include having districts publish chronic absence data earlier in the school year; making that data available by district, school and student group; and establishing a standard definition for attendance to make it easier to compare data within and among states.
The report also noted that while chronic absenteeism affects students from every socioeconomic and racial group, the highest rates of absences are in lower-income districts and in communities hit hardest by the pandemic.
“Reversing these unprecedented levels of post-pandemic chronic absenteeism requires state leaders to make reducing chronic absence a priority,” the report says.
Louisiana leaders say they’ve heeded this advice, making attendance a top priority. Morris, who pushed for the creation of the STAR Task Force in 2022, said he’s so far encouraged by the attention the issue is getting.
“People weren’t talking about it,” he said. “Now they’re talking about it. That’s the first step.”