Good attendance is the foundation and often a dependency for the effectiveness of nearly every other school-based support. Measuring and reporting alone do not change attendance behaviors. Effective methods of addressing attendance issues are proactive, rooted in a better understanding of students and their families, and can result in more trusting relationships between schools and families.
Because attendance is so important and schools have continued to struggle with chronic absenteeism since the COVID-19 pandemic, TalkingPoints is excited to share new attendance-focused engagement tools and best practice recommendations for back-to-school 2024 to help improve student attendance.
FAQs
When will the Attendance Engagement Tools be available?
The new engagement tools will be available as part of the July 2024 app updates so all partners can utilize them in the new school year.
How do staff access the Attendance Engagement Tools?
Once released, the new tools will be accessible by navigating to the new “Engagement Tools” section of the side navigation in the TalkingPoints platform at the school level. From there, the user can select the “Attendance” option.
Who will have access to the Attendance Engagement Tools?
The new feature will be available in the TalkingPoints School app to those users with school-level permissions to send messages.
What is the basis for the attendance engagement tools and recommendations?
The TalkingPoints attendance tools have been designed using research-based best practices to build the kind of strong relationships between families and schools that improve attendance for students.
What attendance engagement tools are available for back to school 2024?
The following tools are available for back to school:
Pre-built attendance best practices messages:
Calendarized and ready-to-use, best practice messages to educate families and encourage attendance in a proactive and preventative manner.
Suggested weekly messages are provided with appropriate variations for elementary, middle and high school student families.
Use the messages as is to send out a weekly cadence of attendance related reminders and tips or modify the pre-built messages to better meet your needs.
Absence reporting system
Leverage TalkingPoints as a system to give families equal access to a barrier-free, universally designed way to explain reasons for absences.
By removing the barriers of language, time, and situation, families can more easily provide information so you can better understand and address the root cause of attendance issues.
Implementation guide
Access the Getting Started Guide here for steps to set up and utilize TalkingPoints for absence reporting and best practices for utilizing the pre-built messages.
Why is TalkingPoints building tools related to attendance?
We understand that student attendance impacts many vital outcomes including school funding, teacher efficacy, graduation and dropout rates, and student achievement. As an outcomes-focused organization, we want to help support our partners in improving attendance rates by providing tools and suggestions they can utilize easily to harness the superpower of strong family and school relationships.