6.4 Boosting Attendance

Maintaining interest and attendance in a high-impact tutoring program requires deliberate action. A strong relationship between the tutor and student is built through regular attendance and becomes the foundation of the social-emotional benefits, increased motivation, and academic success experienced in high-impact tutoring. Attendance is most easily secured when students are tutored within the classroom environment, while other models may need to utilize more of these recommendations. Section 6.4 helps you set the groundwork for successful attendance, two-way communication, data tracking and analysis, and attendance initiatives to encourage students to receive the necessary support for success.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

To prepare for creating systems of attendance, ensure you have completed the following tasks:

GROUNDWORK FOR SUCCESSFUL ATTENDANCE
Key RecommendationsCorresponding Resources
  • Designate a champion who will be responsible for ensuring student attendance.
 
  • Work with lead school staff on strategies to embed tutoring in the school culture (e.g., incentivizing attendance and preferred modes of community communication).
 
  • Understand and develop a plan to mitigate attendance concerns expressed by stakeholders.
 
  • Schedule tutoring sessions that are logistically manageable for both students and tutors and have back-up plans in place.
Playbook Subsection: 6.3 Scheduling Sessions
  • Gather resources to incentivize student attendance through intrinsic motivation (e.g., increase in skill/confidence/ability) or extrinsic motivation (e.g., gamification/snacks).
Checklist: Incentivising Tutoring Attendance
  • Generate excitement for tutoring by creating visual and interactive data displays in hallways or digital dashboards and developing a plan to share staff, student, and tutor testimonials.
TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION AROUND ATTENDANCE
Key RecommendationsCorresponding Resources
  • Connect your champion to caregivers, staff, and students to improve two-way communication targeted to tutored students.
 
  • Encourage tutors and staff to leverage strong relationships with the students and families to boost attendance.
Toolkit: Fostering Collaboration with Educators
  • Communicate with caregivers regarding attendance expectations, benefits of tutoring, and ways to engage with their child about their tutoring.

Toolkit: Family & Caregiver Toolkit for School Districts

Template: Understanding and Supporting Your Child’s Academic Growth

  • Develop a detailed communication plan with protocols and cadence for celebrating successes, regular progress updates, and tutoring session reminders to build awareness and sustain enthusiasm.

Template: Letter to Celebrate Academic Progress and How to Support at Home (Word Document Available)

Template: Sample Parent/Guardian Text Message Reminders for Tutoring Sessions

  • Utilize multiple modes, strategies, and languages in the communication plan to reach every family and staff member.
 
ATTENDANCE DATA TRACKING ANALYSIS
Key RecommendationsCorresponding Resources
  • Create a strong data collection system that takes a systematic, layered approach to collecting data about tutors and students at both session-level and individual level (e.g., overall attendance, late arrivals, early departures, engagement levels).
 
  • Conduct data analysis on student and tutor attendance to identify trends and patterns.
Reflection Guide: Boosting Student Enrollment and Attendance Root-Cause Analysis (Word Document Available)
  • Conduct data analysis on correlations between attendance data and academic progress.
 
  • Conduct data analysis on disaggregated student groups.
 
  • Identify and understand the root causes of low attendance through regular stakeholder feedback.

Example: Snap Survey for Elementary School Students and Tutors

Example: Snap Survey for Middle/High School Students and Tutors

  • Regularly review data analysis and revise the tutoring program based on findings.
 
DATA-BASED ATTENDANCE INITIATIVES
Key RecommendationsCorresponding Resources
  • Designate responsibilities among tutoring program leaders and school staff such as who will oversee strategic efforts and who will recruit students.
Reading: Key Responsibilities for Boosting Attendance
  • Implement proactive strategies for challenges, such as schedule adjustments (e.g., scheduling tutoring sessions after lunch for a frequently late student).
Reflection Guide: Addressing Enrollment and Attendance Challenges (PDF Available)
  • Provide interpretation services for any caregiver meetings, phone calls, celebrations, or events with spoken communication, if necessary.
 
  • Celebrate successes and provide regular updates to continuously engage all stakeholders, including students and caregivers.
 
  • Apply continuous improvement strategies to improve attendance.
Playbook Subsection: 6.5 Building in Continuous Improvement
PLANNING FOR LONG TERM
  • Establish annual engagement campaigns that involve students, families, and educators.
  • Partner with community organizations to reinforce program visibility and provide logistical support for families, such as transportation and language services.
Tutoring Quality Standards and Self-Assessment Indicators
Take the free, 15-minute, and research-based Local Education Agency (LEA) Self-Assessment. This subsection addresses these tutoring quality standards and Self-Assessment indicators.
Data Use
Program Effectiveness and Improvement		The program has demonstrated a commitment to understanding overall program effectiveness and processes for ongoing improvement.
2a.3 | Process for continuous improvement using both qualitative and quantitative data
2a.4 | Process for collecting, analyzing, and responding to feedback from a diverse group of stakeholders (families, students, tutors, and school faculty)
2a.5 | Process for making adjustments to program design and instructional design based on program and student achievement data
Learning Integration
School and Teacher Engagement		The program regularly engages with school leaders and/or teachers regarding instructional alignment and student progress.
4d.2 | Regularly scheduled times for the tutors and tutoring program leaders to meet with teachers and school leaders to share and discuss student progress
Learning Integration
Caregiver Engagement		The program ensures regular engagement with caregivers and updates on student progress.
4e.1 | System for communicating individual academic and non-academic progress to caregivers (directly or in collaboration with school officials)
4e.2 | System for providing caregivers with information about the tutoring program, goals, and objectives pre-implementation (directly or in collaboration with school officials)
4e.3 | Communication systems that are responsive to the backgrounds, diverse needs, and linguistic needs of the caregivers served
Learning Integration
Student Enrollment and Retention		The program has a defined approach to enroll and retain students; particular attention is paid to reducing barriers to participation.
4f.1 | A clearly defined approach for enrolling students into the program. (This approach will differ depending on whether or not participation is required for all students in the school/district, required for a subset of students in the school/district, or if participation is optional for all students or a subset of students in the school/district or if enrollment is open to any student irrespective of the school/district they attend.)
4f.2 | A clearly defined retention strategy for ensuring students attend tutoring sessions
4f.3 | A suite of supports/interventions to reduce barriers to participation, including but not limited to: family communication strategy, transportation assistance, and convenient location/hours of operation