Provide Joint Professional Development on Chronic Absence Inspiring Examples
In 2018, four community based early childhood agencies in San Francisco formed a Peer Learning Network (PLN). The agencies operate a mix of services such as Head Start, state-funded preschools and a teen parenting program. Each preschool program sent four to six representatives to the PLN, including program directors and managers of education services, family services, enrollment, data and health services. The first session focused on orientation to key concepts and sharing of resources. During subsequent sessions, participating programs shared their data and intervention strategies. Seeing each other’s chronic absence data sparked questions and insights related to patterns of absence. In the second session, each program began developing annual plans for implementing their attendance work, which they fleshed out and shared in the third session. In addition to the support and feedback from colleague agencies, each program also received coaching and feedback from Attendance Works staff between sessions.
The Michigan Head Start Association (MHSA) runs professional development conferences throughout the year. In 2016-17, MHSA incorporated chronic absence into its fall, winter and spring sessions. The first session introduced key concepts including a tiered approach and assessing the extent to which their programs were currently addressing chronic absence. The second session reinforced the key concepts, emphasized the creation of an attendance team and provided hands-on activities for family engagement. The third session emphasized uses of data and included four agencies presenting an analysis of their own data and their plans for reducing chronic absence. Participants included Directors, ERSEA staff, Education and Family Service Supervisors from rural as well as urban settings. Attendance grew at each session. The Community Action Alger Marquette Head Start and the Mid-Michigan Community Action Head Start each reported using what they learned to engage in new practices resulting in improved attendance.
The Arkansas Campaign for Grade-Level Reading (AR-GLR) was launched in 2011 to move the needle on education outcomes in Arkansas by focusing on third-grade reading proficiency. Reducing chronic absence is one of its key strategies. The GLR Campaign has undertaken several activities aimed at equipping educators to address chronic absence, starting in the early grades. These include operating a Peer Learning Network of over 60 districts, publishing an online toolkit especially tailored to Arkansas, and equipping staff and consultants from the state department of education and regional universities to work with schools to address chronic absence.
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