Table of Contents
PLEASE NOTE: This page is under construction and is subject to change.
Schools-Taking Action to Address Chronic Absence
Resources
Research
News
- Defining the Terms of Chronic Absence
- Meeting the Challenge of Chronic Absence
- School Connectedness
- Building Community Resources
- Family Engagement Strategies to Increase Attendance
- Tiered Approach to Chronic Absence
- Funding
- Strategic & School Plan, Integrating Attendance
- Communication
- Attendance MTSS Structure
- Attendance Laws, District Policy, Procedures, and Codes
- Toolkits & Guidebooks
- Assessment Tools
- School Break Resources
- USBE Statewide Attendance Campaign & Resources
- Attendance Team Resources
- Attendance Letters
- Attendance Flowchart & Resources
- Foundational/Prevention Supports
- Problem Solving Root Causes of Absenteeism
- Tiered Attendance Resources
- Survey Quick Links
- Panorama & Attendance
- Resources for Teachers & Support Staff
- Communication with Families
- Health Guidance Information for Schools & Families
- September Attendance Awareness Month Resources
- Attendance Campaign Resources
- Attendance Nudges to Increase Attendance Awareness
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What is Chronic Absence?
Chronic absence measures lost learning time and has been defined as missing 10% or more of the total number of days enrolled in school per year for any reason– excused, unexcused, or out of school suspension. Being chronically absent impacts students negatively. Research shows these students tend to have difficulty reading on grade level by third grade, succeeding in middle school, and graduating from high school. Missing only two days a month can put a student at risk for being chronically absent.
What is the Difference Between Truancy & Chronic Absence?
Truancy only counts unexcused absences, emphasizes individual compliance with school rules and uses legal, usually more blaming and punitive solutions. Whereas chronic absence counts all absences, excused, unexcused, and suspensions. Chronic absence emphasizes the academic impact of days missed and the benefits of being present. Often preventative, problem solving and trauma-sensitive strategies are used to address chronic absence. Focusing on chronic absence can also cultivate family and student engagement.
Why Can't Schools Just Monitor Average Daily Attendance?
Average Daily Attendance is measured on a school level and shows the total hours all students attended school divided by the total hours all students could have attended the school year. Average daily attendance is measured on a school level versus a student level and tends to mask individual student chronic absence making it difficult to see when a school or district has an attendance issue. Average daily attendance is beneficial for identifying some issues with attendance, such as aggregate data at certain points of time such as half days, holidays and bad weather.
Who is Affected by Chronic Absence?
The "ripple effect" of chronic absence refers to the far-reaching, cascading consequences of a student frequently missing school, impacting not only their own academic performance but also disrupting the learning environment for classmates, straining teacher resources, and potentially leading to long-term negative outcomes like dropping out of school, ultimately affecting the entire community and workforce.
Meeting the Challenge of Chronic Absenteeism
What Does it Mean to Meet the Challenge of Chronic Absenteeism?
"Meeting the chronic absence challenge" is actively implementing strategies and interventions aimed at significantly reducing the rate of chronic absenteeism in schools, typically by addressing the root causes of students missing large portions of school days through a comprehensive approach that involves collaboration with families, community support, and early intervention methods.

- Meeting the Chronic Absenteeism Challenge-Simple outline of steps to follow to meet the challenge of chronic absence. Know improvement is possible, know your challenge, organize your response and align your resources.
- Changing Mindset Problem Focused vs Partnership Focused-Here you will find a graphic outlining how changing the mindset from problem focused to partnership focused can increase family engagement and increase attendance.
- The More Students Miss Class, The Worse Teachers Feel About Their Jobs-EdWeek Research: New research suggests that chronic absence not only affects students, but also their teachers. This research article highlights how teachers feel chronic absence plays a role in their overall job satisfaction
- How to improve your school's response to chronic absenteeism-The Grad Partnership: The Grad Partnership has created an action planning tool to
- What 3 California Districts are Doing to Reduce Kindergarten Absenteeism-Attendance Achievers: Effective Strategies that Set Bright Spots Districts Apart
What is School Connectedness?
"School connectedness is the belief held by students that adults and peers in the school care about their learning as well as about them as individuals." Schools cant take action and help students feel connected at school.
Why is School Connectedness Important?
When youth feel a sense of belonging or connection to their school they are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors, have better academic achievement, such as higher grades and test scores, better attendance and stay in school longer. In addition, students who are connected to school are less likely to experience:
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- poor mental health
- substance abuse
- violence
- sexual health risks
American Psychological Association. (2014). School connectedness. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/programs/safe-supportive/school-connectedness#:~:text=Students%20who%20feel%20connected%20to,and%20stay%20in%20school%20longer.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that schools use the following strategies to increase students’ feelings of connectedness to school.
- Create decision-making processes that facilitate student, family and community engagement, academic achievement and staff empowerment.
- Provide education and opportunities to enable families to be actively involved in their children’s academic and school life.
- Provide students with the academic, emotional and social skills necessary to be actively engaged in school.
- Use effective classroom management and teaching methods to foster a positive learning environment.
- Provide professional development and support for teachers and other school staff to enable them to meet the diverse cognitive, emotional and social needs of children and adolescents.
- Create trusting and caring relationships that promote open communication among administrators, teachers, staff, students, families and communities.
School Connectedness-White House Summit 2024
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2009). School Connectedness: Strategies for Increasing Protective Factors Among Youth. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Resources and Research About School Connectedness
- Creating a Culture of Belonging and Engagement: Principals in Action-Attendance Works outlines questions leadership can ask to prompt conversations around engagement and take action.
- School Connectedness Helps Students Thrive-The CDC dives into student connectedness, what it is, why it is important and the benefits of promoting school connectedness.
- The State of Chronic Absenteeism-What Millions of Students Tell Us About School Climate-Panorama Study
- Adolescent and School Health-CDC
- Going to School Reflects When Families Have-Infographic
- Every Day Counts Summit 2024
- 6 Strategies to Promote School Connectedness
- 4 Ways to Foster Better Classroom Connection and Increase Engagement-Harvard Education
- Strategies for Fostering Connectedness in the Classroom
- Relationships Matter: Linking Teacher Support to Student Engagement and Achievement
- Relationship Building Activities-3 Fun Relationship-Building Activities for Older Students
- Elementary Calendar-25 Days of Learning to Build Community
- Resources for Teacher & Staff Wellness-From Kaiser Permanente’s Thriving Schools-Back to School Tip Sheet
- Failing School Makes a Turn Around by Building Community-see video here
Family Engagement Strategies to Combat Chronic Absenteeism
- The How of Family Engagement Strategies that Lead to School Success
- Showing up for Success: Family Engagement Strategies for Chronic Absenteeism-Best Practices Guide from Parent Square
Tiered Approach to Chronic Absence


Success Stories-Using a Tiered Approach for Attendance
- Grants from ULEAD - Innovation Program Grant
- School Communications Planning Guide - To increase engagement
- Why, What, How Document
- Where Can I Learn More?
- USBE Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (UTMSS)
- Teaming: Center on PBIS Team-Initiated Problem Solving
- Attendance Works School and District Teaming
- Data Collection: Attendance Works Data-Informed Teams
- MTSS Examples:
- Attendance Playbook and Guide to Using the Attendance Playbook
- Attendance Works Examples of Tiered Practices
- Colorado Department of Education Attendance Strategy Guide
- Kansas State Department of Education Tier 2
- Chicago Public Schools MTSS for Attendance & Truancy
- Ohio Attendance Guide
- Panorama MTSS Intervention & Progress Monitoring Forms
- Policy-Jordan District Attendance Policy
- Procedure-District Attendance Flowchart
- Jordan School District Attendance Codes
- Attendance Playbook-Future Ed
- Attendance Works Toolkits
- Every Day Counts Attendance Manual
- September Awareness Toolkit
- Back to School Toolkit
- USBE Attendance Toolkit
- Self Assessment Tools
- Teams and Data
- Attendance Works Attendance Team Guidance
- How to Organize an Effective School Team to Improve Attendance-Attendance Works
- Tier 1 Team Meeting Agenda
- Tier 2 Team Meeting Agenda
- Year-long Planning Calendar
- Student Success Team Reflection Tool
- Summary of Actions Document-What should happen at our school for each level of absence?
- School Based Attendance Team Roles
- Chronic Absenteeism: The Critical Role of School Nurses
Attendance Letters-(*Note-These are the same as the templates on Skyward)
- Compulsory Education Letter-Registration Packet
- Elementary School
- Compulsory Education
- 5 day Letter & Spanish Version
- 10 day Letter & Spanish Version
- 15 day Letter & Spanish Version
- Middle School
- High School
- 5 Day & Spanish Version
- 5 Day/Quarter & Spanish Version
- 10 Day & Spanish Version
- 10 Day/Quarter & Spanish Version
- 15 Day & Spanish Version
- 15 Day/Quarter & Spanish Version
- 10 Day Consecutive Absence Withdrawal Letter-Spanish Version here
- District Attendance Flowchart
- What Should Happen at Our School for Every Level of Attendance-Blank Form
- What Should Happen at Our School for Every Level of Attendance-Example Form from Attendance Works
- What Should Happen at Our School for Every Level of Attendance-South Carolina example
Foundational/Prevention Support
Foundational supports that promote positive conditions for learning.
- Effective Practices Include:
- Increase school connectedness-very effective universal prevention measure
- Family Engagement
- Messaging campaigns (sending the message that school is a good place to be)
- Nudge communication with families/students (text messages and letters)
Resources
- Every Day Counts Summit 2024
- Deeper Dive into School Connectedness
- Dual Capacity-building Framework for Family-School Partnerships
- SEAC Resource-Planning for Family Engagement
- SEAC Resource-Planning for Youth Engagement
- Foundational Supports Which Promote Positive Conditions for Learning
- What Should Happen at Our School for Each Level of Absence
- Tips for Morning Announcements
- Engage Families at Parent Teacher Conferences
- Resource Mapping-(Harvard Graduate School of Education)
- Reviewing Available Resources - Attendance Work
- Asset Mapping-National Alliance on Mental Illness
- Guide-Avoiding the Attendance Slump:Strategies to Maximize Learning Time in June
- Handouts
- Is Good Attendance in Kindergarten Important?
- Every Minute Counts
- Every Day Counts
- What We Know About Good Attendance-Spanish
- The Habit of Good Attendance Early
- Keep your Student on Track in Middle School
- Attendance Tracking Calendar for Families-JSD Logo
- Attendance Awareness Month Resources-Attendance Works Awareness Campaign
- Communicate the importance of Attendance at Large Gatherings
- Attendance Pledge
- Attendance Banners
- Attendance Stickers
- Attendance Success Plan Including Attendance Tracking Calendar
- Keep Kids Healthy and in School-for districts, schools, and community partners
- 2x10 Relationship Strategy Bank
- Edutopia: Starting Each Class With a Warm WelcomeHow to Guide Relationship Mapping
- Video: Every Opportunity-Importance of Everyone on board
- Edutopia: Making Connections With Greetings at the Door (for elementary)
- Mood Meter
- Edutopia – Relationship Building From Day 1
- Zones of Regulation
- How to Guide Relationship Mapping
- Examples of Tiered Practices
- Example of relational home visits: Parent Teacher Home Visits and Learning Engagement and Attendance Program (LEAP)
- Example of mentoring: MENTOR and virtual mentor portals, Peer Group Connections, Success Mentor
Problem Solving: Addressing Root Cause
Effective Practices:
- Engaging families and students in identifying root causes and solutions
- Early warning system, MTSS, and student success systems (Panorama)
- Success Coaches and mentors
District and School Actions:
- Forming strategic partnerships to provide student supports at the appropriate level (wrap around supports, mentors, tutors)
- Create or expand community schools
- Partner with city mayors to form interagency task force to improve transportation, housing, etc
Root Cause Analysis Resources
- Anonymous Student Survey on Causes of Absenteeism-Sprick, J., & Berg, T. (2019). Teacher’s guide to tackling attendance challenges. ASCD. Also available as a downloadable PDF.
- Root cause analysis reference sheet
- Root Causes for Absenteeism
- JSD Attendance Problem Solving
- Mitigation: Recovering Learning & Social Connection Best Practices
Tier I Resources
- Tier 1/Foundational Rubric
- Tier 1 Team Meeting Agenda
- Data Evaluation Sheet
- Tier 1 Student Perception Survey
- Sample Survey Letter Home-Tier 1
- Tier 1 Scope & Sequence
- Engage Families at Parent Teacher Conferences
Tier 2 Resources
- Triggers for Tier 2 & Tier 3 Interventions
- Tier 2 Team Meeting Agenda
- Tier 2 Student Survey
- Attendance 3P, Goal Setting, CICO Series
- Family Panorama Surveys
- SEL-3 Signature Practices
- Student Attendance Success Plan
Tier 3 Resources
- Statewide Community Mapping Document
- Why, What, How Document for Community Mapping
Student & Family Surveys
- Tier 1 Student Perception Survey
- Tier 2 Student Survey
- Anonymous Student Survey on Causes of Absenteeism-Sprick, J., & Berg, T. (2019). Teacher’s guide to tackling attendance challenges. ASCD. Also available as a downloadable PDF.
- Family Attendance Survey for Schools
Team/School Surveys
Within Student Success you have access to a variety of attendance reports to help explore patterns, spot concerns early, and take timely action to support students. The different attendance reports help you understand daily attendance and long-term trends, so you can understand attendance at the student, school, and district level. Depending on your role, you can:
- Track daily attendance rates and identify which students are absent.
- Monitor chronic absenteeism over time and compare across schools, grades, and student groups.
- Quickly see where intervention plans are needed and take direct action from within a report.
Panorama Academy provides guidance for navigating Panorama with attendance as the focus.
- Guide to Attendance Reports in Student Success
- Chronic Absenteeism Intervention Gaps Report
- Recently Absent Students Report
- Attendance Report for Teachers
- Absenteeism Trends Report (Longitudinal Reporting)
- Daily Attendance Dashboard
Other Helpful Panorama documents:
- School is Better with Students-Handout for Teachers
- School Communications Planning Guide - to increase engagement
- Todd Rogers- Harvard Professor Research on How to Communicate with Busy People
- September Awareness Month Communication Guide
- JSD Back to School Communication Guide-Message to send to parents and families at back to school time
- Teacher to Parent Relationship Building Scripts
- Positive Caring Calls-Focus: Attendance & Chronic Absence
- Tips for Talking to Families Infographic
- Handouts for Families-Attendance Works
Health Guidance Information for Schools and Families
Health Information for Families
- Health Handouts for Families-Attendance Works
- Health resources surrounding chronic absence- https://healthyschoolscampaign.org/dev/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Here-and-Healthy-Fact-Sheet.pdf
- Health Guidance for Going to School-JSD English & Spanish
- Keep Your Child Healthy and in School-JSD English & Spanish
- Is Your Child Missing School Due to Anxiety?-JSD
Utah Asthma Health Resources for Schools-Utah Department of Health and Human Services
- School Nurse Asthma Resources
- Asthma School Nurse Toolkit: Click here to open a Google Drive folder with materials for the Asthma School Nurse Toolkit. You can view and download materials for each of the education areas in the folder.
- What to do in Case of an Asthma Attack: This is a 10 minute presentation for school nurses to provide educators. Click here to download the PowerPoint presentation.
- Asthma Action Plan
- Asthma Action Plan, Medication Authorization and Self-Administration Form (Combined Asthma School Form) (Espanol): This form combines all of the forms you need to manage asthma at school. It serves as an asthma action plan, medication authorization, and self-administration form.
- Recess Guidance for Asthma students at School
- The Utah Recess Guidance is a tool for determining when to hold recess indoors due to poor air quality. The Guidance provides recommendations for recess based off PM2.5 levels reported by the Department of Environmental Quality.We encourage schools in these counties to use the Recess Guidance and DEQ website to determine recess. Ultimately, the final decision on when to hold indoor recess is made by the schools. Below are some steps for implementing the Recess Guidance. Find more school resources here.
- Additional Resources
- School Asthma Programs-
- B3: Brain Body Boost Program - Brain Body Boost is an online, school-based wellness program designed to help 4th, 5th, and 6th grade teachers strengthen health education in the classroom. B3 provides lesson plans that meet state requirements, school supplies for teachers, and participation is completely free!
- EPA’s Indoor Air Quality “Tools for Schools” Program - A toolkit to help schools improve indoor air quality.
- Idle Free Utah - A program to improve air quality by reducing vehicle idling.
National School Asthma Resources-
- Managing Asthma in the School Environment-Tips for schools from the Environmental Protection Agency for managing asthma in the school environment, along with resources to develop an asthma management plan.
- The Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America-This is an organization that provides resources for health care, professionals, caregivers, and child care providers.
- CDC's Strategies for Addressing Asthma within a Coordinated School Health Program (PDF)
- Managing Asthma: A Guide for School (PDF)
- The Asthma Community Network serves as a year-round resource for mentoring and collaboration. It's designed to provide the tools, information and partners to support asthma management programs to communities and schools.
September Awareness Month Resources
- Attendance Awareness Month Toolkit
- Back to School Toolkit
- Awareness Month Spirit Week Outline
- USBE Attendance Awareness Month Flyer
- JSD Student Attendance Tracking Calendar 25-26
- Monthly Attendance Nudges Guidance 25-26
Poster Templates
Attendance Pledge Template
Attendance Nudges to Increase Attendance Awareness
Spread the word through social media posts, newsletters, Parent Square, your school website, posted around your school and any other way you can think of.
Monthly Attendance Nudges by Month 8 2025
- 2025-2026 Attendance Nudges
- Suggested messaging outlined by month for the 2025-2026 school year
Social Media Posts-Ready to use social media nudges to increase awareness around attendance in the community.
Example:
Did you know...? Research shows that most students with just 2 absences a month in the first month of school go on to miss more than 25 days total. Don't let 2 missed days define your year! Start the year off strong by making sure students are in school whenever they are not sick. Welcome back to school! Attendance Awareness-Jordan School District
USBE Statewide Attendance Campaign & Resources
- USBE Attendance Toolkit
- Statewide Attendance Campaign
- September Attendance Awareness Campaign
- Attendance Messaging
- Attendance Teaming
- Attendance Incentives
Ready made announcements to alert patrons there is no school for school recesses throughout the year.