“Everything, everywhere, all at once” solutions to chronic absenteeism

Editor’s note: This essay won first place in Fordham’s 2024 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “How can policymakers and practitioners radically reduce chronic absenteeism—at least below pre-pandemic levels and preferably much further?” Learn more.

The challenge of chronic absenteeism is incredibly complex. School, district, state, and other system leaders are taking steps to design more equitable solutions by naming and exploring the root causes of chronic absenteeism, engaging with those most proximate to the problem (including students, families and educators), and tailoring solutions to community, school, and family contexts. Still, this is not enough to solve the diverse and formidable issues keeping students from regularly attending school.

Dramatically reducing chronic absenteeism requires attention to “everything, everywhere, all at once” to understand and address the ecosystem of root causes identified by Attendance Works that include barriers to attendance, disengagement from school, aversion to school, and misconception about the impact of absences. We propose a three-pronged approach that includes re-engaging students, supporting families, and generating timely data. First, schools and districts need to re-engage students by addressing student engagement and sense of belonging in school. Second, schools and districts must support families by investing in programs, tools, and resources for asset-based family engagement. Finally, schools and districts need to generate timely data by integrating leading indicators of chronic absenteeism into data systems.

We need and want students in school now, but it will take time to accomplish the deeper changes that will bring students back and keep them in school. How do we develop “everything, everywhere, all at once” solutions without creating chaos in an already stretched system? Education Resource Strategies’ “Do Now, Build Toward” framework offers a strategy for addressing chronic absenteeism. At its heart, this approach consists of choosing a set of “doable starting points” for immediate implementation that are designed with “a longer-term vision in mind–a defined vision [that flows] through to clear strategies that are based on research and lessons learned from past experiences.”

1: Re-engaging students: Address student engagement and sense of belonging in school

Districts can build systems that listen to students to understand the barriers they face, particularly those related to instructional materials, sense of belonging, and learning conditions. Facilitating opportunities for schools and districts to collaborate with their communities can make schooling more relevant and engaging for students.

Research indicates that as students progress through school, they often become increasingly disengaged and bored. This disengagement is partly due to a lack of connection between the curriculum and their lived experiences, as well as a sense of not owning their learning process.^[1] To counteract this, schools and districts are introducing culturally relevant curricula that reflect the diverse experiences of students and career-focused education that is directly related to life and work beyond school. Pedagogical approaches and school structures that center student voices also play a crucial role in boosting engagement. Listen to students and act on one student-defined solution to make school more relevant and interesting as districts implement culturally relevant curricula in the long term.

2: Supporting families: Invest in programs, tools, and resources for asset-based family engagement

Sustainable partnerships with families and community groups are vital to inform and re-educate them about the impacts of chronic absenteeism. Districts can consider a wide range of community and family engagement efforts, such as advocacy campaigns to change policies that exacerbate absenteeism, engaging community organizations to reinforce the importance of regular school attendance, and initiatives like libraries sharing information and healthcare organizations offering flexible hours for appointments.

Building stronger relationships with students and families takes considerable time and attention. In the short term, many schools and districts have implemented immediate solutions like messaging campaigns and direct texting to share positive messages, encourage attendance, and keep families informed about their children's attendance. This personalized attention helps address immediate attendance issues and lays the foundation for strong school-family partnerships.

Districts can support these short-term efforts by allocating resources to conduct effective family outreach. They can also provide technological solutions for easy communication in various languages. These efforts build toward deeper, long-term capacity-building for reciprocal relationships between families, schools, and communities, regaining trust necessary for sustained change.

3: Generating timely data: Integrate leading indicators of chronic absenteeism into data systems

Over the last decade, federal and state mandates have significantly improved attendance record keeping by states and districts, highlighting the growing issue of chronic absenteeism. Despite these advancements, gaps remain in early warning data systems, particularly in their ability to use collected data to implement effective solutions.

In the short term, districts can adopt practices around the proactive identification of at-risk students (e.g., after two absences). While many districts have early warning systems that track course grades, attendance, and behavior to identify at-risk students, these systems do not address the root causes of chronic absenteeism. Longer term, districts should expand their early warning systems to include elements such as students’ sense of belonging and the relevance of school to their lives.

4: “Everything, everywhere, all at once” solutions

We have identified several evidence-based efforts that are aligned with our proposed approach of “everything, everywhere, all at once” solutions that re-engage students, support families, and generate timely data:

• Concentric Education Solutions (CES): School-based change that addresses organizational and leadership development, school culture and climate, student support services, and special education support. Research within Baltimore City Public Schools concluded that CES demonstrates “promising” evidence for improving student outcomes.


• EveryDay Labs: School-based data collection and interventions to foster a supportive partnership between school districts and families to prevent absences. EveryDay Labs meets the “strong evidence base” criteria for ESSR funding, suggesting a strong and proven rate for alleviating chronic absenteeism.


• Parent Teacher Home Visit Program: Identified as a best practice and as a national model for successful parent engagement by the Harvard Family Research Project.

In closing, chronic absenteeism is a critical challenge for our K–12 education system, and a complex problem to solve with root causes across multiple systems. However, based on research and the examples we highlight, we know that this “everything, everywhere, all at once” challenge can be met through opportunities for connecting and supporting an ecosystem of students, educators, families, community organizations, and policymakers, all focused on ensuring that barriers to attendance are lifted and students have what they need—in and out of school—to thrive. We can solve the problem of chronic absenteeism if we start now—designing solutions that cross a diverse set of root causes—and build toward a lasting and sustainable vision.