Breaking the Chronic Absence Cycle: Transforming School Attendance Strategies
See how SchoolStatus Attend helped Troup County Schools reduce chronic absenteeism by 25% through automated attendance tracking and parent communication. Their success story shows how the right technology transforms student outcomes.
District Overview
District: Troup County School System
Size: 12,000+ students
Products Used: SchoolStatus Attend
Location: Georgia
Background
Troup County School System, a southwest Georgia district serving 18 schools and approximately 12,000 students, faced significant challenges in managing student attendance consistently and efficiently. The district struggled with fragmented attendance tracking processes, inconsistent communication with parents from school to school, and limited visibility into student attendance patterns, which led them to search for an attendance management solution.
The Challenge: Inconsistent Practices Across the District
Troup County School System (TCSS) faced a lack of consistency when it came to managing attendance across the district. Each school generated different attendance letters and sent them to different sets of students, creating confusion and lacking a unified approach to addressing student absences. Manual letter generation and mailing processes consumed substantial administrative time and resources from Family Liaisons. Staff spent hours creating, printing, and mailing individual communications—instead of focusing on student support strategies.
The district also struggled with significant difficulties in tracking students, particularly those frequently transferring between schools, which is common in TCSS. This transient student population created gaps in attendance monitoring, making it challenging to develop comprehensive intervention plans. Plus, the existing systems provided limited visibility into chronic absenteeism, preventing school leaders from quickly identifying and providing targeted support for students at risk of falling behind academically due to missed time in school.
The Solution: Automated Attendance Management
TCSS introduced SchoolStatus Attend after a recommendation from a former superintendent who was familiar with the platform from previous districts. Candice McGhee, the Director of Preventions and Interventions, emphasized the platform’s key value proposition: bringing organization and consistency to attendance tracking.
The biggest piece is the organizational aspect. Everything is in one location. You can see everything.
Candice McGhee, Director of Preventions and Interventions
SchoolStatus Attend transformed the district’s attendance management through a comprehensive suite of innovative features. The platform’s automated interventions eliminated the tedious manual process of generating and mailing attendance letters, ensuring consistent and timely parent notifications. Ms. McGhee appreciated how this automation saved administrative time, allowing staff to focus on more strategic tiered interventions rather than paperwork.
The platform’s tracking capabilities provide unprecedented visibility into student attendance. Unlike previous systems requiring complex report generation, SchoolStatus Attend presents an immediate, clear list of absent students. This enables school administrators to quickly identify and target students at risk of chronic absenteeism, facilitating more proactive and personalized intervention strategies.
Robust documentation and compliance tools represent another critical advantage of the system. The SchoolStatus platform allows staff to comprehensively tag and document all communications, creating a streamlined record-keeping process that supports potential legal compliance requirements. Ms. McGhee shared, “We have everything already in SchoolStatus Attend, so that’s a great feature, very beneficial to us.”
Results: Reducing Time on Interventions to Provide Targeted Support
Through strategic interventions enabled by SchoolStatus Attend, Troup County School System reduced chronic absenteeism by 25% over the last two school years, from 16.6% in 2022-23 to 12.2% in 2024-25, putting the district on its way to meeting its ambitious goals. Ms. McGhee’s continuing vision for her role extends beyond mere tracking, focusing on creating actionable plans that bring families and school leaders together to address attendance challenges.
The district’s attendance clerks have embraced the platform, appreciating its user-friendly interface and robust data dashboards. Ms. McGhee notes, “We don’t have to worry about [letters] anymore, SchoolStatus Attend does that for you—and that’s time management as well so that’s something else that the school officials could be working on instead of trying to get letters together.” Using SchoolStatus Attend has freed the district’s Family Liaisons to have more one-on-one conversations with families and allowed them to develop specific plans for individual interventions based on the district’s PBIS and MTSS frameworks.
If you’re looking for a platform that will help you gather information and track attendance, this is a great program to use…It’s been beneficial for our school district.
Candice McGhee, Director of Preventions and Interventions
For educational institutions seeking a comprehensive, intuitive attendance management solution, SchoolStatus Attend offers a transformative approach to tracking, communicating, and proactively addressing student attendance—ultimately supporting improved educational outcomes.
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