The document discusses 5 ways that innovative school districts are reducing chronic absenteeism: 1. Promoting stronger relationships between teachers and students to improve social-emotional learning and school connections. 2. Changing attendance letters to "nudge" families with personalized absenteeism data and impact, reducing chronic absenteeism by 10%. 3. Setting district-wide attendance goals and building community partnerships to spread awareness, reducing chronic absenteeism by 52%. 4. Developing an app for students to track their attendance, grades, and points as positive reinforcement for healthy attendance patterns. 5. Implementing early warning systems to monitor at-risk students and inform targeted support before chronic absenteeism develops.

1. 5 Ways
Innovative School
Districts Are Reducing
Chronic Absenteeism
by Panorama Education

2. Promote stronger
relationships between
teachers and students1.Key insight: By having educators focus on
relationships and social-emotional learning,
students will attend school more regularly,
succeed academically, and feel more
connected to their learning.
Serves 64,000
students
Located in metro
Reno/Sparks, NV
Washoe County
School District

3. Promote stronger
relationships between
teachers and students1.
“We can now look at our subpopulations’
responses to our climate survey and see
that the gaps in students’ perceptions
about their school climate perfectly mirror
the gaps we see in chronic absenteeism.”
Dr. Laura Davidson
Director of Research and Evaluation
Washoe County School District (Nev.)
Teachers and staff at Cold Spring Middle School hang posters on the wall that
list the names of every child in the 980-student school
With colored markers, educators add checkmarks next to students’ names
under columns labeled “Name/Face,” “Something Personal,” “Personal/Family
Story,” and “Academic Standing,” to note whether they knew the child just by
name or by something more personal
Research shows that students who don’t have meaningful social connections
may be at risk for attendance and behavior problems, dropping out, and even
committing suicide
The district administers an annual school climate survey using
Panorama to measure and understand students’ perceptions of
safety, engagement, and social-emotional learning in school
As a result, Cold Spring Middle School has seen higher attendance rates
and the district has reached new levels in overall graduation rates since
implementing social-emotional learning programs

4. Key insight: When families know their child’s
attendance figures and how they compare to
others, parents and guardians can help get
their child in school more regularly.
Change attendance letters
to use “nudges” that reduce
absenteeism by 10% or more
Serves 134,000
students
The School District
of Philadelphia
Located in
Philadelphia, PA
2.

5. The district partnered with researchers at Harvard University to
run a randomized control trial that mailed letters home to
parents and guardians of students facing chronic absenteeism
These letters were designed to “nudge” attendance rates higher by
raising awareness of each student’s current absenteeism figures and
what impact these missed days have on students’ learning
As a result, the district realized a 10% reduction in chronic absenteeism
for those students whose families were involved in the messaging
campaign
This same, cost-effective messaging technique is now being used in
dozens of districts nationwide, including the Chicago Public Schools
(IL) and Tacoma Public Schools (WA), with similar results in reducing
chronic absenteeism
Change attendance letters
to use “nudges” that reduce
absenteeism by 10% or more2.

6. Set a district-wide
attendance goal and build
community awareness3.Key insight: By engaging the wider
community around an attendance goal, the
district can leverage partnerships with
families and community organizations to
reduce chronic absenteeism by 52%.
Serves 17,000
students
Located in Grand
Rapids, MI
Grand Rapids
Public Schools

7. Set a district-wide
attendance goal and build
community awareness3.
District leaders analyzed attendance data to discover that over
7,000 students were missing a month or more of school each year
Administrators initially prioritized direct outreach to the parents
and guardians of its most absent students before embarking on a
wider community awareness campaign
Challenge 5 promotes that students and families should “strive for
fewer than five absences in a school year” using posters, social
media, video, and events
Grand Rapids Public Schools leveraged partnerships with families,
community organizations, police, and local businesses to spread this
message
Today, after three years work, the district has 3,600 fewer students
who are chronically absent, a 52% reduction of chronic absenteeism
district-wide

8. Let students
earn “points” for
high attendance4.
Key insight: When students can track their
own attendance and academic progress in
a fun, interactive way, they will feel more
engaged and have a greater sense of
ownership for their success in school.
Serves 74,000
students
Located in
Fresno, CA
Fresno Unified
School District

9. Let students
earn “points” for
high attendance4.
Fresno Unified developed “Strides,” an app where students can see
trends in their grades, attendance, and extracurricular participation
The app is inspired by FitBit, as a way for students to quickly check
their progress regularly for positive reinforcement and receive game-
based points that promote positive behaviors and success in school
Students earn points for attending school each day and the app
displays a “streak” of days attended so students can work to maintain
healthy attendance patterns over time
As a result, district leaders have seen over 30,000 students log-in to
check their trends in the app to check their trends and students
report checking their stats more regularly than they otherwise would

10. Implement an
early warning
system5.Key insight: By monitoring early warning
indicators, educators can spend more time
taking action and supporting students that
need additional help before they become
chronically absent or fail courses.
Serves 2,800
students
Located in Lake
Villa, IL
Community High
School District 117

11. 5.
Implement an
early warning
system
District leaders recently started using Panorama Student Success
as an early warning system in order to monitor key trends and
indicators for every student
School counselors, teachers, and administrators can log-in to see
each student’s daily trends in attendance, academics, behavior, and
results from social-emotional learning (SEL) assessments
Early warning systems can flag individual students and groups of
students that are at risk of chronic absenteeism based on recent daily
and course section attendance patterns
Today at Lakes Community High School, school leaders are using
these indicators to inform a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) so
that every student graduates with college and career-ready skills

12. Learn more about improving attendance
with Panorama
Panorama Education helps educators act on data to improve student
outcomes. Panorama has supported more than 5 million students in 6,500
schools across 40 states, including those in the New York City Department
of Education, Dallas Independent School District, Seattle Public Schools,
and San Francisco Unified School District.
Learn more