Absence is a lost learning opportunity; the more absences, the more significant the impact is on a student’s success. Chronically absent students are more likely to fall behind and less likely to graduate from high school. The first step in addressing chronic absenteeism is seeing the data to educate parents and students and help those students develop good attendance habits.
We have developed an Attendance Works Risk Indicator to be utilized with our Attendance Works - School Attendance Tracking Tools.
Attendance Works has partnered with Applied Survey Research to develop self-calculating spreadsheets (District and School Attendance Tracking Tools) to help school districts explore their data at the building, grade, and individual student levels. These spreadsheets contain thresholds of risk for students. We have used these thresholds in the Attendance Works Risk Indicator.
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District and School Attendance Tracking Tools
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CREATE A NEW RISK INDICATOR
Create New Risk Indicators, which will be found in the left-hand column of the Risk Indicator Application.
Fill in the following information:
- Name: Attendance Works Risk
- Description: Attendance Works / Applied Survey Research Risk Thresholds For Chronic Absence
- Student Groups: Click the Select button. Select Current School Year. Click the Shared Groups button. Choose All Students. Click the Add Student Groups button on the top right.
- Student Filtering Instances (optional)
- Set Schedule: Click Select. Select Daily from the drop-down menu in the Schedule Type box. Leave the time set to 8 am. This sets a procedure that will update the Risk Indicator daily at 8 am. It is crucial that this indicator, since it is for Attendance, be updated daily. Click Set Schedule.
- Day of the Month to Take Snapshot: (optional)
- Is Secure: leave this box checked. This will ensure that users will only see student data for those they have permission to see.
- Is District Level: Check this box. This will enable all users to see the risk indicator under District Risk Indicators in the Risk Indicator Application and allow them to see this as an option in the Homeroom Risk Viewer.
- Include as Student Download Option in Homeroom: Check this box if you would like end users to have the option to see and download the risk level of students in the Homeroom download options.
- Display on Student Profile in Homeroom: Check this box if you want end users to see a student's risk level on their profile in Homeroom.
Click the Save and Continue option from the drop-down menu of the Save button.
DATA POINTS TAB
Data points of School, Grade Level, and, most notably, the Sum of Effective Daily Absences will be added.
Click Data PointTab and then the Data Point Add Action ‘+’
Look for the Student header and Click Current Predominant School.
This will add a row titled Enrollments-Current Predominant School. Find the row and click the gear Actions icon to the right >Configure.
Uncheck the box next to School, check the box next to School Abbreviation, and in the Styles box, type Current School in the Column Heading Label box. (There are further optional actions under styles) Click the Save button.
Click Save again. Next, click the Add data point ‘+,’ look for the Student header and click Current Grade Level.
This will have added two rows titled Enrollments - Current Grade Level and Current Grade Level Ordinal.
Click Add Data Point ‘+” look for the Behaviors header, and click Daily Attendance.
This will open a new window called Column: Daily Attendance. Click Set Time Span and select In the Last from the drop-down menu. Input 180 and select School Days from the drop-down menu. Check the box Limit to current year. This will allow the risk indicator to continue to function year after year.
Select the Sum of Effective Daily Absence.
Click Save. This will have added a row titled Behaviors - Sum of Effective Daily Attendance.
Click Save again to save all the data points.
Click and drag Student - Name to the 1st position, Enrollments - Current School to the 2nd position, and Enrollments - Current Grade Level to the 3rd position. Putting the data points in this order will put the columns of data in this order in the report view and in the spreadsheet that can be downloaded.
Now find Risk - Risk Value and click the arrow to the left to update the Sort order to -1, and use the drop-down menu as descending. This will order the data in the report and spreadsheet by the Risk Value descending, which means the students with the most risk will be at the top of the detailed list.
The Risk Indicator should now look like this:
Click Save and Continue from the Save drop-down menu.
DEFAULT RISK LEVELS TAB
Click the Default Risk Levels Tab and the Setup Risk Levels button to set up the levels of risk utilizing the Attendance Works levels below. You can add a new row by clicking on the right-hand Add ‘+.’
Click Save and Continue from the Save drop-down menu. The Conditional Risk Levels Tab can be skipped.
Click Save and Continue from the Save drop-down menu.
The Conditional Risk Levels Tab can be skipped. Click Next in the top right-hand corner.
REPORT TAB
Click Reload Risk Indicator button at the bottom of the page; this will calculate the risk for the group of students chosen on the details tab. Depending on the size of the student group, this may take some time. The Current Status will update regularly until done, or you can click the refresh button to see the most current status. Do not click the Reload Risk Indicator button a second time, as this will restart the process.
Once the Current Status = Completed, click the Next button in the top right-hand corner.
STUDENTS TAB:
Click the 'Load Preview' button to see the Indicator Details for Risk Columns Only. As noted above, the columns are in order, with Name, School, and Grade Level coming first, and ordered by Risk Value, with the students with the highest risk at the top of the list.
Choose 'View Indicator Summary' and click the 'Load Preview' button.
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