San Francisco Resolution Seeks to Curb Chronic Absence

San Francisco schools would analyze chronic absence patterns and launch pilot programs to improve attendance in elementary schools, under a resolution submitted this week (June 8) to the San Francisco Unified School District's Board of Education.

Commissioner Norman Yee's resolution also calls for using an electronic communications tool known as School Loop to alert parents, teachers and afterschool providers when children are missing too much school--to excused or unexcused absences. The school district also uses School Loop to provide information about homework and academic records.

And Yee suggests that the district engage the city's Department of Children Youth and Their Families and encourage good school attendance as part of the district's Parent Engagement and Partnership Plan adopted last year.

This resolution, which would come up for a vote in late summer or early autumn, provides a model for what local school districts can do to encourage the analysis and tracking of chronic absence.

As many as 16 San Francisco's 76 elementary schools now have chronic absences rates of 15 percent or higher; in one school, it ran as high as 39 percent. In addition to the educational time lost, there's a financial loss in a state where average daily attendance play a role in state funding.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome makes that point in a San Francisco Examiner story that ran today (June 10).  "Fixing this problem is critical," he said. "There's money attached from average daily attendance, so the school district has every incentive to prioritize this."

Under Yee's resolution, the school board would ask the superintendent to provid an annual analysis of chronic absence patterns in elementary schools by school, grade and astudent populations; the superintendent would then create pilot programs in a set of low-performing schools called the "Superintendent's Zone" to reduce chronic absence by at least 5 percent in these schools.

The pilot schools would set up student attendance monitoring teams at each school, under the resolution. The team would review data and identify and barriers to good attendance for children and families, such as health problems, unreliable transportation, unstable housing or other factors.

 

Each school would then develop a plan for reducing chronic absence and would partner with community agencies to help parents get their children to school every day.