You need a team to craft a thoughtful engagement strategy (see Step 3 for how to organize an engagement strategy). A team approach ensures you have access to the insights and resources needed to design and implement meaningful pathways for engagement and attendance. One person can’t do it all.

District and school leaders are positioned to ensure a team exists to support the work. If you are just starting this process, you can begin with a small group, and invite other stakeholders over time. This initiative can use an existing, new or a reconfigured team.

If you are a community partner who would like to help, start first by determining whether a school or district team exists that you can join, or look for a school or district leader with whom you can partner to organize their team.

Over time, teams should bring together people that bring diverse perspectives within your school or district (e.g., instruction, student support, family engagement, data management, special education and Title I). Teams should also include groups from your community (e.g., parent leaders, early childhood providers, health providers and other nonprofit and business partners), and the membership should reflect your school or district student demographics.

Keep in mind that community partners can be invaluable support for putting in place activities, initiatives and resources that will motivate attendance and remove barriers that keep students out of school. An honest analysis of the data without revealing individual student information is essential to ensure that the plans for engagement are appropriately aligned to the specific needs of the students and school community.

Regardless of size of the team, make sure it is clear who is responsible for convening the team and setting the agenda.

Ideally, responsibility for your engagement and attendance strategy is part of an ongoing team in your school or district. For specific steps on how to organize a school or district team, the key functions of the team and who should be members, please refer to the resources below. Our resources include self-assessment tools that will help you take stock of what you have in place and areas that may need to be developed or enhanced.