PROGRESSIVE INTERVENTIONS FOR ABSENT STUDENTS

Regular, uninterrupted instruction, classroom participation, and interaction with classmates are essential to educational success. For that reason and others, state law requires that all children of appropriate age and condition attend school, and do so regularly. Similarly, state law requires that public school districts identify students who are at risk of chronic or excessive absenteeism and take steps to improve and remove barriers to those students’ attendance.

A school-age person subject to the provisions of the Attendance for Success Act shall attend school for at least the length the school year established by the Rio Rancho Public Schools unless otherwise exempt or excused. Under state law, the parent of such a school-age person subject to the provisions of the Attendance for Success Act is responsible for the school attendance of that school-age person. The district will enforce all state laws regarding student attendance.

As required by state law, this attendance policy:

• establishes an early warning system that includes evidence-based metrics to identify students at risk of chronic absenteeism or excessive absenteeism;

• provides for early identification of chronically absent and excessively absent students;

• employs an attendance improvement plan that focuses on:

• keeping students in an educational setting;

• prohibiting out-of-school suspension or expulsion as the punishment for absences;

• assisting a student’s family to remove barriers to the student's regular school attendance or attendance in another educational setting; and providing additional educational opportunities to students who are struggling with attendance;

• limits the ability of a student to withdraw to only after all intervention efforts by the District or the CYFD to keep the student in an educational setting have been exhausted;

• requires that accurate class attendance be taken for every instructional class and school day in each District school or school program;

• provides that each school shall differentiate between different types of absences;

• requires each school to document the following for each chronically or excessively absent student:

• attempts by the school to notify a parent that the student was absent from class or the school day;

• attempts to improve attendance by talking to a student or parent to identify barriers to school attendance, identify solutions to improve the student’s attendance behavior and discuss necessary interventions for the student or the student’s family; and

• intervention strategies implemented to support keeping the student in an educational setting, including additional educational opportunities offered to the student;

• requires a student or the parent of a student who intends to claim excused absence because of medical condition, pregnancy or parenting to communicate the student’s status to the appropriate school personnel and to provide required documentation; and

• encourages and supports lawful data sharing, pursuant to the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (”FERPA”), between a school and community-based organizations that provide services to students for the purpose of providing more personalized interventions and specialized supports as part of the school's attendance improvement plan.

A. Attendance Intervention

Each District student shall be classified into one of four attendance intervention tiers, based on the percentage of class period and school day absences. The District will report to the Public Education Department (Department), at each reporting period and the end of the year, for each student with an absence, the attendance intervention tier to which the student was assigned during the reporting period. Beginning with the 2020–2021 school year, school districts and charter schools will be responsible for calculating and reporting students’ attendance intervention tiers for each reporting period in STARS.

When calculating absenteeism rates, the District and schools will calculate the percentage of expected in-person days missed. For instance, if a student is expected to attend in-person classes on Monday and Tuesday each week, and is absent every Monday, that reflects a 50 percent absentee rate for that student.

For purposes of implementing these interventions, attendance teams may be formed in whole or in part from preexisting groups or teams within a school or may be formed for the explicit purpose of improving school attendance. The District shall reserve time for school personnel to collaborate as an attendance team, and shall provide support and guidance to attendance teams on transportation and school scheduling options when these are identified as barriers to school attendance.

The four attendance intervention tiers used by the District are:

1. Tier 1 – Whole School Prevention

For students who have missed less than five percent of classes or school days, for any reason. Whole school attendance strategies are not specific to a student, but are universal in nature an may include but are not limited to attendance incentives, whole school or class attendance campaigns, electronic notification to parents of student absences, implementation of Positive Behavioral Supports and Interventions (PBIS).

2.  Tier 2 – Individualized Prevention

For students who have missed five percent or more, but less than ten percent, of classes or school days, for any reason. In addition to whole school prevention, and any other supportive interventions, for a Tier 2 student, the attendance team shall talk with the student’s family or parent to inform them of the student’s attendance history the adverse impact of absences on academic outcomes, the intervention services available to the student or family, and the consequences of further absences. Students at all grade levels shall be provided the same interventions and shall be involved in the conversations with the student’s family or parent.

3.  Tier 3 – Early Intervention

For students who have missed ten percent or more, but less than twenty percent, of classes or school days, for any reason. In addition to whole school prevention, and any other supportive interventions, for a Tier 3 student, the attendance team shall notify the parent or family in writing of the student’s absenteeism. The notice shall include a date, time, and place for the parent or family to meet with school officials to develop intervention strategies that focus on keeping the student in an educational setting. The attendance team shall be convened to establish a specific intervention plan for the student that includes establishing weekly progress monitoring and a contract for attendance. To the extent appropriate, given the student’s age, the student should be actively involved in the formulation of the attendance contract, the provisions of which should include a focus on both academic and extracurricular activities appropriate for and of interest to the student.

4.  Tier 4 – Intensive Supports

For students who have missed twenty percent or more of classes or school days, for any reason. In addition to whole-school prevention strategies and other supportive interventions, for Tier 4 students, the attendance team shall give written notice to the parent or family, including a date, time, and place for the parent or family to meet with the school principal and the attendance team, and establish non-punitive consequences at the school level, identify appropriate specialized supports that may be needed to help the student address the underlying causes of excessive absenteeism, and apprise the student and the parent or family of the consequences of further absences.

B. Attendance Improvement Plans

1.  District Attendance Improvement Plans

The District shall develop attendance improvement plans that include the following elements:

a.  specific school district supports and resources available to schools at each level to further the implementation of their attendance improvement plans;

b.  attendance improvement targets for schools or subpopulations with chronic absence rates of ten percent or greater, developed in collaboration with each school; and

c.  an attendance improvement target for the District where if there are chronic absence rates of ten percent or greater.

d.  The District shall report its report its attendance improvement plan to the Department no later than forty-five days after the beginning of the school year. The District may report its attendance improvement plan as part of the educational plan for student success where permitted by the Department.

e.  At the end of each school year, the Administration shall report to the Board and to the public, on the school district's website, the progress made on its attendance improvement plan, to include:

i.  a description of the supports and resources provided to schools at each tier of the attendance improvement plan;

ii.  the extent to which schools with chronic absence rates greater than ten percent achieved their attendance improvement targets;

iii.  the extent to which the District achieved its attendance improvement targets;

iv.  barriers and challenges to reducing chronic absence rates, as reported by the school and District personnel;

v.  effective school-based practices, as evidenced by decreased chronic absence rates; and

iv.  recommendations for improvement during the next school year at both the school and District level.

C. School Attendance Improvement Plans

Any school with five percent or greater student chronic absence rate during the prior school year, or with five percent or greater of one or more student subgroups with a chronic absence rate during the prior school year, shall develop an attendance improvement plan to be submitted to the Department as part of the school’s educational plan for student success.

A school’s attendance improvement plan shall include:

1.  attendance data for each of the preceding two school years and the current school year, including:

a.  the school's overall absence rate;
b.  chronic absence rates disaggregated by student subpopulation;
c.  chronic absence rates disaggregated by grade level; and
d.  student attendance for every day of the school year;

2.  school-wide identification of potential root causes of chronic and excessive absenteeism through one or more of the following:

a.  national or local research;
b.  analysis of supportive factors and barriers;
c.  student surveys or focus groups;
d.  youth participatory research; or
e.  other appropriate school-based research methods;

3.  identification of strategies for each tier of the attendance improvement plan;

4.  identification of performance measures for each strategy; and

5.  a data-collection plan for performance measures.

D. Whole School Attendance Prevention Strategy

Regardless of its chronic absence rate, each school shall develop and implement a whole- school absence prevention strategy to be reported to the Department as part of the school’s educational plan for student success.

E. Interventions for Students Absent or Chronically Absent

A school’s interventions to students who are absent or chronically absent, may include:

1.  assessing student and family needs and matching those needs with appropriate public or private providers, including civic and corporate sponsors;

2.  making referrals to health care and social service providers;

3.  collaborating and coordinating with health and social service agencies and organizations through school-based and off-site delivery systems;

4.  recruiting service providers and business, community and civic organizations to provide needed services and goods that are not otherwise available to a student or the student's family;

5.  establishing partnerships between the public school and community organizations, such as civic, business and professional groups and organizations and recreational, social and out-of-school programs;

6.  identifying and coordinating age-appropriate resources for students in need of:

a.  counseling, training and placement for employment;
b.  drug and alcohol abuse counseling;
c.  family crisis counseling; and
d.  mental health counseling;

7.  promoting family support and parent education programs; and

8.  seeking out other services or goods that a student or the student's family needs to assist the student to stay in school and succeed.

F. Enforcement of Excessive Absenteeism

The District shall initiate the enforcement of the provisions of the Attendance for Success Act for excessively absent students.

If a Tier 4 student’s unexcused absences continue after written notice of excessive absenteeism, the Board, after consultation with the Superintendent, shall report the excessively absent student to the probation services office of the judicial district in which the student resides for an investigation as to whether the student should be considered to be a neglected child or a child in a family in need of family services because of excessive absenteeism and, thus, subject to the provisions of the Children's Code. The record of the School’s interventions and the student’s and parent’s responses to the interventions shall be provided to the juvenile probation services office. The Superintendent shall provide the documentation to the juvenile probation services office within ten business days of the student being identified as excessively absent.

If the juvenile probation services office determines that the student is a child in a family in need of family services, a caseworker from the child or family in need of family services program shall meet with the family at the school in which the student is enrolled to determine if there are other intervention services that may be provided. The meeting shall involve the school principal or other school personnel and, unless the parent objects in writing, appropriate community partners that provide services to children and families. The CYFD shall determine if additional interventions, including monitoring, will positively affect the student’s behavior.

LEGAL REF :
NMSA 1978 Sections 22-12A-1, et seq.

Rio Rancho Public Schools
Adopted: June 11, 2018
Effective Date: July 1, 2018
Revised: August 24, 2020

Previous policy adoption history:
Adopted: October 28, 1996
Revised: January 26, 1998
Revised: August 9, 1999
Revised: July 28, 2003