Creating an Attendance Success Plan 

Educator Research

Shared with permission from Attendance Works

The Student Attendance Success Plan is designed to help parents track their children’s attendance and work with teachers to set appropriate goals. Each Student Attendance Success Plan includes a calendar for the current school year. The plans are shared with students and their families. Creating the Student Attendance Success Plan involves encouraging families to think about their back up plans for getting to school even when faced with challenges.

Here are the resources for this improvement idea:

This document is guide for families to identify their support system as they implement the plan.

My Family's Help Bank.

Student Attendance Success Plan Template

Elementary

Secondary

The handouts are free to download and reprint. Be sure to keep the Attendance Works logo on the document, or a line stating, "Used with permission from Attendance Works." If you want to change the wording significantly, please contact Cecelia Leong at cecelia@attendanceworks.org.

How to Implement a Student Attendance Success Plan Template

1. Determine which group of students you would like to try this idea with. If you are testing this idea at the beginning of the school perhaps it is students who had attendance issues the previous school year. Research tells us that students who miss more than 3 days per quarter are off-track for on-time high school graduation. Consider those students who meet that threshold. (Robert Balfanz, Everyone Graduates Center, Johns Hopkins University). 
2. Set up time to meet with each student and/or family to create a Success Plan. The meeting should be short and conversational.

Here is sample outline for the meeting conversation:

Sometimes things get in the way and make getting to school more difficult.  This Success Plan helps us think through that in advance, so we aren’t caught off-guard and have some ideas in place when we encounter a barrier.  Using the ideas on Page 1, help the student and/or family think about which (if any) ideas might be helpful. 

It can help to think about who else we can call on as well.  The Help Bank document will help identify who else we might be able to rely on if something comes up. (Reference the The Help Bank document).

One way to ensure that absences don’t become a barrier to success is by tracking attendance.  (Reference the attendance tracking plan of the Success Plan handout)

Thank the student/family for taking time to think through this plan and emphasize.

3. Ensure that you and the family have a copy of the success plan.

4. Continue to track the test groups attendance using the data collection tool. Use the Student Success Plan document for future reference and accountability.

• Research Base

  Attendance Works

• Practical Keys to Success
  • Build rapport and ensure that the request for the Success Plan meeting is not the first communication with the families.
  • Allow enough time to complete the plan during the meeting. Allow the family to keep the original but keep a copy. Let the family know that you will refer to the their plan for accountability of both parties.
  • Identify the test group and keep it constant. Collect baseline data and be consistent with data collection throughout the test.
  • Consider working in a group. Perhaps your grade level team or department would like to be involved.
  • If you are testing independently, choose a test group that is manageable.

• Measurement

  Use the data collection tool to record measurements Creating Student Success Plans Data Collection

  • Process Measures
  • Record the date of outreach, date of success plan meeting, and notes.
  • Outcome Measures
  • Record the change in the number of absences for each student over time.