Immediately Contacting Parents of Absent Students 

Tamara Lyons

Improvers:

• Cheryl Jefferson, West Bertie Elementary, Bertie County Schools
• Carmen Graf, Jerica Wyant, Laura Perez and Juliet Vanderburg, East Garner Elementary, Wake County Public School System

(This idea originated during 2020-21 when the authors’ schools were 100% virtual and they had students missing Google Meet classes.) 

I am concerned about students who are regularly absent. I tested an idea to immediately make contact with the parent by phone, text or email to inform them of their child’s absence. For virtual students, we have live virtual meetings twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays.

I collected attendance on Monday, contacted parents of absent students, tracked parental response, then collected attendance for the next class session and repeated the process over and over.

• Impact

  W.A. Pattillo Middle

  Tamara Lyons, Teacher

  • Two of the four students with chronic absences are attending class at least one of the two days we have live class sessions-Tamara Lyons,

  West Bertie Elementary

  Cheryl Jefferson, Teacher

  • Two of the four students with chronic absences from online class have improved their attendance. Cheryl Jefferson,

  East Garner Elementary School

  Principal Carmen Graf, Jerica Wyant, Juliet Vanderburg and Laura Perez, East Garner Elementary

  

  • Average weekly attendance for this set of third grade students on the Watch List moved from 69% to 89%.
  • Five out of seven (71%) of third graders increased their attendance.
  • Quarantine weeks were not included in the final calculations for each student
• Practical Keys to Success

  Tamara Lyons, W.A. Pattillo Middle:

  Initially, I was unsuccessful in reaching the parents but in the second week I was able to reach  their parents.I learned that one of my students was frequently absent because the family was experiencing a lot of issues centered around health issues and death.  

  I am now adding more students to the list and am continuing with my efforts of immediately contacting parents when students are not present. Advice I would give is to remain persistent.  I consistently called the parents, texted or left messages every time their child was not in class.  It really helped to verbally speak with the parent letting them know that you were not going slack off with the communication.  

  Those parents that I consistently had no communication with, I referred their child's name to the counselor and school social worker.

  Cheryl Jefferson, West Bertie Elementary:

  I learned that some parents are not aware that their child is not attending class daily. Talking to the students consistently about attending class can help. Praising kids can increase attendance.

• Measurement

  Record the current number of absences of each student and include the method of parent contact. Record the number of absences and notes for parent contact for subsequent weeks.

  Email us at Schools That Lead to request a sample data collection spreadsheet.