Collaborations for Truancy Reduction (August 2022)

By Julie Incitti, School Social Work Consultant, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction 

Although attendance concerns have risen as students and school systems have been impacted by the pandemic, collaborations focused on truancy reduction between youth serving systems have led to innovative youth-centered problem-solving and more robust continuums of support. School communities around Wisconsin have taken various approaches to promoting high attendance rates and working with students and families when students are chronically absent. What researchers are finding is that when professionals from various systems proactively meet to plan a collaborative system-building approach to truancy reduction, it can enhance their prevention and promotion, early intervention, and intensive support and ultimately improve educational and health outcomes (US DoE 2015).

Wisconsin educators strive for high graduation rates with healthy and well students. Since regularly missing school has a significant impact on student achievement and positive youth development, truancy laws aim to deter students from skipping school, encourage students to attend, and encourage caregivers to get kids to school. The hope is to ultimately increase graduation rates, improve the workforce, build community, support wellbeing, reduce the risk of negative outcomes, and increase protective factors and positive outcomes. It is helpful for school staff to keep the purpose of truancy reduction in mind when approaching policy and practice considerations.

In the past, school leaders may have focused on a punitive approach to truancy enforcement, which led to youth justice involvement.  However, this response can make it even more challenging to reduce barriers to attendance, because it causes the student and family to feel alienated, distrustful and angry and less likely to engage in problem-solving (AttendanceWorks 2020). It is important to understand that school absences are not necessarily a threat to public safety, yet many jurisdictions continue to treat missing too many days of school like a crime (Weber 2020).  What effective school leaders understand now is that this type of system involvement actually has the opposite effect and results in worse school attendance (AttendanceWorks 2020).  Research shows that an arrest, court involvement, and/or system supervision for youth who are truant or commit other low-level offenses actually decreases their likelihood of attending school and completing high school (Weber 2020). The youth justice system is set up to manage threats to public safety, and is not the best system to serve the primary needs of most students who are truant. 

If the youth justice system is not in the best position to address the underlying factors that contribute to students missing school, what can schools do? School leaders can adopt more research-based, developmentally appropriate approaches, including organizing a school attendance collaborative team consisting of representatives from youth justice, child welfare, the courts, local law enforcement, homeschool programs, private schools, students, parents/caregivers, and other community youth serving agencies. Collaborative teams should include representatives from various cultural and identity groups. Collaborative teams start with an assessment of current strengths and needs related to attendance promotion and truancy enforcement, including identifying data sources and considering the impact of policy decisions on various cultural and identity groups. The logistics of team meetings include planning a regular meeting schedule, defining roles and responsibilities, establishing group norms, developing a standard meeting agenda, developing a shared understanding of the barriers and goals, creating a shared vision, and prioritizing actions to enhance the community’s continuum of attendance supports. This type of multi-level collaborative trauma sensitive approach to truancy reduction is showing promising results across the nation (Weber 2020). 

Right here in Wisconsin, school district leaders from the School District of La Crosse brought together a group of stakeholders to address truancy concerns. They engaged in learning together to better understand risk factors for chronic absenteeism, and unique barriers in their community. They built a vision and set goals based on this shared understanding and shared responsibility for the youth in the community. Their work resulted in three on-going committees: Prevention, Early Intervention, and Intensive Interventions. The Prevention Committee has instituted a community awareness campaign, community registration and enrollment events, and created healthcare collaborations. The Early Intervention Committee has improved the student and family assistance program, improved the system of care, created a community health worker partnership, updated letters, notices, and meeting agendas and templates, and engaged in the La Crosse Area Family Collaborative and neighborhood impact work. The Intensive Intervention Committee has reviewed the functional assessment of school refusal behaviors, and focuses on student-driven individualized approaches to attendance improvement. School district leaders feel more supported in this work and are encouraged by the cross-system collaborations.

Waukesha County convened a Truancy Task Force beginning in the 2017-2018 school year.  They first sent a survey to stakeholders to gather data to drive the goals of the task force, and then invited all the county school districts and other statutorily required members (see: Wis. Stat.§118.162). They created four subcommittees with specific goals and timelines based on the survey results: Attendance and Truancy Interventions; Parent Outreach and Collaboration; Medical Excuses; and County, School District, and Youth Justice Collaboration Subcommittees. Through the 2018-2019 school year the subcommittees continued work individually and with the whole group on an every other month basis to provide ongoing updates and collaboration. In the spring, a County Truancy Task Force Summary Report was created, including tools and resources, and disseminated throughout the county for all to utilize as needed. Waukesha school leaders found that this collaborative approach increased their communication with the county, improved their proactive communication with students and families, improved their tiered strategies, created more consistency among districts, and led to better goal setting and progress monitoring. 

School leaders across Wisconsin are turning to collaborative and student-led approaches to truancy reduction to best meet the needs of the school-community. When taking this approach, it is important to keep in mind the overall goal of better connecting students to the school-community, promoting student academic and life outcomes, and increasing graduation rates. Local policy decisions and school staff behaviors can drive the type of trauma sensitive collaborative actions that can move the numbers in a positive direction while supporting students and staff wellbeing.

If you missed it, please review the Considerations in Truancy Reduction article published in January 2022, which provides reminders related to attendance statutes, homeschool reports and timelines, and considerations for addressing truancy for students with IEPs.

Additional policy and practice considerations, with links to implementation resources, can be found in DPI’s Best Practice Approaches to Truancy Reduction: Information for School Attendance Officers.

References

AttendanceWorks. 2020. “The Urgent Need to Avoid Punitive Responses to Poor Attendance.” Accessed September 2021. https://www.attendanceworks.org/the-urgent-need-to-avoid-punitive-responses-to-poor-attendance/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AttendanceWorks+%28Attendance+Works%29.

Weber, Josh. 2020. Rethinking the Role of the Juvenile Justice System: Improving Youth’s School Attendance and Educational Outcomes. Center for State Government Justice Center. Accessed August 2021. https://csgjusticecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CSG_RethinkingtheRoleoftheJuvenileJusticeSystem_15SEPT20.pdf.