Attendance Resources & Materials

On this page, you will find tools for understanding your data, planning and assessment tools, information on attendance screeners, and various resources for communicating about attendance.

For more Attendance Awareness resources, check out and join the Attendance Works 2023 Attendance Awareness Campaign!

ESD Attendance Support

Each Educational Service District has a Attendance and Reengagement Coordinator to provide regional support.

• ESD 101: Allyson Fritz
• ESD 171: Rebecca I'Anson
• ESD 105: Shelby Lockhart
• ESD 123: Malorie Kahl
• ESD 112: Claire Pearson-Walker
• ESD 121: Anthony Brown & Ury Salinas
• ESD 113: Casondra Gerlich
• ESD 114: Jeff Allen
• ESD 189: Heather Huntington

District and School Attendance Tracking

• Attendance Works offers excel tools that will easily produce reports that display the data listed above by simply importing your student-level data.
• Strive for Five Attendance Tracker (Grandview). Consider creating something like this for your students and parents based on your school calendar. Help them track their attendance with ease!

Digging Deeper to Understand Contributing Factors

These tools can help you understand factors in your school or community that may be impacting groups of students.

• Voice Matters: Uncovering systemic barriers to school improvement through voice circles (Systems4support, October 2022) - This guide provides a step-by-step plan to setting up student listening sessions (aka Student Voice Circles) to listen, learn and act on student feedback, on attendance, engagement or any other issue impacting your school community.
• Understanding the Factors Contributing to Chronic Absence in Your School
• Scan of Environment & Attendance Tool (SEAT)
• Student Voice Survey
• Healthy Youth Survey
• Anonymous Student Survey
• Anonymous Box: Try putting a box in the front office for students to explain anonymously why they were absent.
• Geographic Mapping (BatchGeo) is a free online tool to help identify geographic trends in your students’ attendance.

Planning & Assessment Tools

• Attendance Awareness is not just for September. Use this planning tool from Federal Way to keep attendance at the forefront in your school or district throughout the year.
  • Attendance Awareness Planner (Federal Way).
  • Year-Long Planning
• Attendance MTSS Tiered Inventory
• Attendance Works Assessment Tools
  • Use the School Self-Assessment Tool and District Self-Assessment Tool to help assess your school or district’s efforts and systems to support attendance.

Communication

• This Attendance Letter Template provides parents with the information about attendance required by law in RCW 28A.225.005.
• "Increasing Student Attendance with a Human Approach" Selah Assistant Principal Lee Grams shares his view of a positive approach to attendance and a culture of care.
• Find Handouts for Parents (One-pagers) of all ages on the Attendance Works website.
• How to Talk to Parents about Attendance-Communication that Works (One-pager).
• Customizable Email to Teachers
• Distance Learning Connecting Hierarchy (High Seser ESD, Oregon)
• Writing Truancy Notices that Can Improve Attendance
• EveryDay Labs: Family Insights Toolkit
• Strategies for Contacting/Connecting with Students and Families (Attendance Works)

Attendance Letter Templates

• Beginning of the Year Letter for Attendance Sample
• 1 Day Unexcused Absence Letter Sample
• 3 Day Unexcused Attendance Letter Sample
• 5 in a month or 10 in a year Excused Absence Letter for Elementary Schools Sample
• 7-15 Unexcused Filed Truancy Letter Sample

OSPI Guidance on Attendance & Truancy Assessments/Screeners

The OSPI Guidance on Attendance & Truancy Assessments/Screeners provides information on validated attendance & truancy assessments/screeners that school districts can use to help identify barriers to attendance. This guidance supports schools and districts to meet the requirement to administer an assessment between the 2nd and 7th unexcused absence in RCW 28A.225.020.

Validated Tools

• Washington Assessment of Risks and Needs of Students (WARNS)
• Reasons for Chronic Absenteeism-Blended or Virtual (RCA-BV)
• School Refusal Assessment Screener-Revised Student Version
• School Refusal Assessment Screener-Revised Parent Version
• Flourishing Life Assessment

Locally Developed Examples

• Student Assessment of Barriers to Attendance (Puyallup School District)
• Attendance Assessment with HOPE Scale (Peninsula School District)
• Attendance Reassessment with HOPE Scale (Peninsula School District)
• Parent Assessment of Barriers to Attendance

Research

• Attendance Research Summary (Attendance Works)
• Attendance Playbook: Smart Solutions for Reducing Chronic Absenteeism )FutureEd and Attendance Works)

Interventions

• School Avoidance & Refusal Resources
• Attendance Works Family Handout on Anxiety

Webinars

OSPI GATE Equity Webinars:

• Communicating Care Through Attendance Teams
• How Do Schools Prioritize and Maintain Connections With all Students?
• Engaging and Culturally Responsive Remote Learning Environments
• One District's Approach to Supporting Attendance
• Attendance Community Cafes

Additional Webinars:

• Sunnyside High School’s Attendance System
• Barnes Elementary (Kelso SD) Attendance System
• Attendance Works Webinars
• National Student Attendance, Engagement, and Success Center (NSAESC)