For: District Admins + School Admins
Platform: Web
The Attendance Trends tab gives you a clear picture of how absences change over time—so you can spot problems early, respond faster, and support families more effectively.
✋ What You Need First
✅ Your school must use TalkingPoints Connector (TPC) and have purchased the Attendance Improvement Plus package
✅ Your role must include access to the Attendance module
🖥️ Available on the web only (not available in mobile apps)
🎯 Why Use Attendance Trends?
Chronic absenteeism is hard to tackle when schools don’t have time to analyze trends or understand the reasons behind absences. This tool helps by:
Showing visual trends over time
Breaking absences down by type and reason
Tracking chronic absenteeism patterns
Making it easier to respond before attendance issues escalate
📍 Where to Find It
Log into your TalkingPoints School Product
Go to the Attendance section from the left-hand navigation
Click the Attendance Trends tab
📊 What You’ll See: Attendance Trend Charts
📌 Chart #1: Percentage of Absences by Type
Shows the types of absences over time, including:
Excused
Unexcused with reason
Unexcused without reason (based on school-provided values)
Purpose: Spot patterns and shifts in the type of absences occurring at your school.
📌 Chart #2: Top Reasons for Absence
Highlights the most common absence reasons from your SIS, including:
Top absence categories (up to 10) for a given time period
"No Reason Given" category appears when no reason was provided for an absence
“Uncategorized” or “Other” may be included when absence reasons could not be categorized or when there are more than 10 categories to display.
Purpose: Understand why students are missing school to support targeted outreach.
🧠 How AI helps:
TalkingPoints' built-in AI tools organize uncommon reasons into general categories. ✔️ Your data stays private—no external processing or model retraining is used.
📌 Chart #3: Absences Over Time
Visualizes student absences throughout the school year, including:
Blue line = Number of all absent students
Yellow line = Number of chronically absent students (missing 10%+ of school days)
Purpose: Track:
When absences spike
How chronic absenteeism grows or improves
If your interventions are working over time
📌 Notes about the yellow line:
Tracks # of students who are chronically absent, not a % rate
Absences in the beginning of the year will cause this line to be higher
📆 Customize Your Date Range
Above the charts, you’ll find options to:
Select preset ranges (week, month, etc.)
Or create a custom range (e.g., semester or grading period)
🧠 Where the Data Comes From
Attendance data is pulled directly from your SIS using TalkingPoints Connector
TalkingPoints adds smart categorization to help group and visualize data
All analysis is performed within TalkingPoints’ secure environment
💡 Why This Matters
🧩 Lay the groundwork for data-driven, proactive intervention
🎯 Better understand reasons for absences, so you can address root causes
🎉 Celebrate successes!