5 Proven Strategies to Boost Student Attendance
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How Vicksburg Warren School District Enhanced Attendance and Graduation Rates
Vicksburg Warren School District, a diverse district comprising 16 schools, faced challenges including low attendance rates and lagging academic achievement. Superintendent Chad Shealy led the transformation by implementing SchoolStatus Connect to unify student data, consolidate family-teacher communication, and simplify data-driven interventions. These implementations helped the district overcome challenges and enhance student success, resulting in significant improvements. Attendance rates soared from 70 to 80% to a consistent 92%, and graduation rates saw a remarkable increase from 56% to 90%.
Challenge: Unlocking Student Potential Amid Data Challenges
The district struggled with low attendance rates and inadequate academic achievement, attributed partly to data accessibility issues. Educators had limited visibility into timely and relevant data, hindering informed decision-making. Additionally, family-teacher communication was disjointed, especially for at-risk students. “Data is my love language. It’s where I live as a superintendent. You can’t structure a good quality plan if you don’t have real reliable data,” explained Superintendent Shealy.
Solution: Empowering Educators with Data and Communication
Shealy introduced to the district SchoolStatus, a robust platform that unifies student data, simplifies data analysis, and improves communication between teachers and family members. By implementing SchoolStatus, Vicksburg Warren gained access to real-time, actionable data, facilitating informed decision-making.
“SchoolStatus is a powerhouse data and communication tool,” says Shealy.
The communication component of SchoolStatus proved to be extremely beneficial for the district. It provided a transparent view of all communications between teachers, administrators, and families. For example, by accessing a student’s profile, administrators could observe 28 communications from teachers and 15 from the principal, providing a comprehensive understanding of each student’s situation.
This level of visibility fostered better collaboration among stakeholders and enhanced support for students, and educators were able to effectively collect and analyze data to personalize student interventions.. As Shealy explained, “As an administrator, I want to make sure that if a kid’s not there, I want my teachers to call the families before we get a whole administrative intervention and counselors involved. And if all of your communication comes through SchoolStatus, which it does in my district, I can see it all. It’s all right there.”
Results: Remarkable Improvements in Attendance and Graduation Rates
The implementation of SchoolStatus has yielded substantial improvements. Attendance rates have reached and remained steady at 92%, rising as high as 97% following a focused intervention period. Graduation rates have surged from 56% to 90%. By analyzing data including, assessments, standardized test results, student grades, teacher performance data, and more, educators have been able to personalize interventions for at-risk students based on individual needs.
Sometimes people get data paralysis. SchoolStatus does a fantastic job of putting all that right there in a dashboard, broken down per kid, so it’s easy to see, understand, and then do something intentional to help that kid.” — Chad Shealy, Superintendent
By adopting SchoolStatus, Vicksburg Warren School District overcame data challenges, enhanced communication, and transformed student outcomes. The platform’s impact is reflected in improved attendance and graduation rates and better collaboration among educators, administrators, and Families.
To learn more about how SchoolStatus Connect can help your district engage more families and create a positive learning environment in schools, contact our team.
