Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource
One of the most important lessons from attendance data is that it’s predictive. For individual students, attendance rates strongly predict academic success and graduation. Across age groups at scale, you find predictable patterns showing which grades have the best and worst attendance, along with which days students are most likely to miss.
This knowledge allows districts to plan large-scale interventions and shift practices immediately.
According to the SchoolStatus’ end-of-year attendance report, which analyzed national attendance data from 1.3 million students, students typically have the highest attendance in fifth grade. Attendance drops in sixth grade, and continues down a sharp decline. In the study, chronic absenteeism more than doubled from fifth grade (14.22%) to 12th grade (32.13%). In fifth grade, many students feel like they’re at the top of the school. They have gotten to know their peers and teachers and have established relationships. Often, their families know people at the school. They know the route, the bus driver, their group of friends, who is the nicest lunch lady, and where the candy is hidden in the office.
Then they get to sixth grade. They’re in a new building. They might have a new bus route. Three elementary schools are feeding the middle school, and their friends are in different classes. They may suddenly feel like they’re just a name on a roster. The work might feel overwhelming. And there’s a 1 in 4 chance they’re being bullied. YouthTruth’s “Anti-Bullying Report” reveals that between sixth and eighth grade, students’ sense of their place in school drops by 11 percentage points, from 52% to 41%, while rates of bullying remain consistent.
A recent SchoolStatus analysis of nearly 1 million California students from 145 districts reveals that families of middle schoolers respond to school outreach at rates of 69% to 70%, compared with 74% to 77% for elementary and high school families. The engagement gap appears precisely when students need connection most. And attendance suffers as a result.
Clear patterns are emerging in California as districts engage families to address chronic absenteeism. With the state’s Senate Bill 691 mandating positive messaging to improve attendance rates, districts are implementing positive, proactive family outreach early, before absenteeism patterns set in, and are realizing attendance gains.
Roseville City School District, for example, reduced chronic absenteeism by 62% over two years, with English learners’ rates of chronic absenteeism falling from 13% to 7%. Los Nietos School District achieved a 51% reduction, with absenteeism among special education students dropping from 29% to 17%.
The common thread? Systematic, early, relationship-focused outreach to families. Here’s what that looks like:
Reach out by a student’s third absence. Data shows that contacting families after just a few absences reverses the pattern before it becomes chronic. When districts send attendance letters or make personal contact early, more than half of students improve without needing a second intervention. If you don’t have letters set up, make a call. Send a text.
Do a student connection audit. Identify which students lack strong connections to adults in the building. If there are students that no one knows, that’s where to start. Students come to school when they are connected to both peers and adults.
Approach communication as a relationship. An analysis of 3.3 million school-home SMS messages from across the country shows families respond to school outreach. Families responded to messages at a 73% rate, with a median response time of just11 minutes. Families are ready to engage. The more relevant, accessible, and timely the communications, the more they build trust and community.
Time your outreach strategically. Families are most responsive Monday through Thursday between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m., with peak engagement at 8 a.m. and between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.
There are also long-term changes that work to engage families in improving attendance:
Start a positive attendance campaign from day one. Get students involved. The more involvement and agency students experience, the better their outcomes. Students are partners in the solution.
Use text messaging with two-way translation. Families prefer text communication, and response rates vary across populations, suggesting culturally responsive approaches could increase effectiveness.
Make first contact within two weeks. Families who engage in August and September are twice as likely to stay engaged throughout the year.
Rethink the middle school transition. Every sixth grader should have a trusted adult assigned before school starts. Make that connection through summer bridge programs, extended orientation and August family outreach.
A failed test or class is a data point about something that’s already happened. An absence is an indicator of what might keep happening. California has made progress: Among students who missed at least one day of school, the average number of days missed per student was 17 days in 2021–22, and 13 days in 2023–24.
Districts implementing systematic approaches are accelerating that recovery. One simple way to get started, even at the classroom level, is to participate in Mission: Attendance, a no-cost year-long program for K-12 educators.
The research is clear. Engaging families to address chronic absenteeism works. The question is whether we’ll implement these strategies in time to keep more students connected to school.
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Kara Stern, the director of education for SchoolStatus, which provides data and tools to help school districts improve attendance. She is a former teacher, middle school principal and head of school. She designed Mission: Attendance to provide systematic support for educators working to improve student attendance.
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