Lets Talk Attendance!

The education of your student is extremely important to us. Attendance is not only an essential component to a student’s academic success, but state law also requires it. The Arizona Department of Education continues to provide data confirming that students who are chronically absent in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade are much less likely to read at grade level by third grade and have significant gaps in crucial social emotional skills. Students who have gaps in character development, executive functioning skills and/or cannot read at grade level by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school. Furthermore, chronic absenteeism in even a single year between 8th and 12th grade was associated with a seven-fold increase in the likelihood of dropping out of high school all together. Young people who chose to drop out have been linked to having insufficient executive functioning and character skills needed to be successful and may have greater life challenges such as poverty, poor health, and other negative outcomes. Being at school on time and consistently is important to the healthy development and growth of your student, academically and behaviorally. We are committed to doing all that we can to support your student's attendance daily.

Often, the number of days students are absent accumulates without parents realizing how many days have been missed or how many times their student is tardy to school. It is highly recommended that you ensure you have access to your ParentVUE when school is in session to monitor your student’s attendance and more.

We realize that there are a variety of reasons that students are late or absent, from health concerns to transportation challenges and more. To encourage and improve school attendance, Desert Heights Schools is in partnership with the Maricopa County Juvenile Probation C.U.T.S (court unified truancy suppression) and C.U.T.S. L.I.T.E. (limited intervention to educate) programs. We have adapted the protocols of these programs in effort to communicate and notify families when specific thresholds are reached. The C.U.T.S. program only requires one warning letter to be sent. However, we communicate more than this in effort to support our families by sending a letter to notify you each time a specific threshold is reached. Additionally, we are continuing to streamline many processes amongst our community using our Synergy systems. One of the enhancements of this system is the ability to create processes to document and gather data specific to students and school wide for planning and tracking purposes. This year, in addition to notification letters being automatically generated from the system and distributed, a minor incident referral will also be created when specific attendance thresholds are reached for a student. Please note that all absences, excused or unexcused, count collectively toward your

student’s attendance and may have an impact on promotion, graduation, and retention decisions.

This year, we plan to continue to collect feedback and data within the processes in place to support all parties. To help you understand why you may receive a letter, we wanted to break down the thresholds for you prior to the school year starting but you can also review the information from the handbook here.

Kindergarten through 4th grade students:

Step one: five (5) absences reached; notification letter is generated automatically from the system and distributed for awareness purposes; minor incident referral created for documentation.

Step two: ten (10) absences reached, notification letter is generated automatically from the system and distributed for awareness purposes; minor incident referral created for follow-up and documentation purposes; conference required to discuss barriers in getting to school; vision and Goal plan issued to continue enrollment.

Step three: fifteen (15) absences reached, notification letter is generated automatically from the system and then distributed for awareness purposes: minor incident referral created for follow-up and documentation purposes: possible conference with Maricopa County Truancy Officer.

Step four: nineteen (19) or more absences reached; minor incident referral created, and referral to the Maricopa County Truancy Program

It is extremely important that you communicate when your student will not be attending school for any reason either by phone or using the online system through our website. For safety reasons, five unexcused absences are considered habitually truant and would warrant a referral to the C.U.T.S program and/or a well check from local authorities to ensure the student and family is safe.

Again, we realize there are a variety of reasons a student may be tardy or absent. If there are sudden changes within your household that may affect your student’s attendance, please reach out so we can be in communication as much as possible in effort to support. If there are health concerns that may impact your student, please reach out to me so that I can connect with you to discuss what may qualify as a chronic health condition and other attendance guidelines that may apply.

Please know that we are here to support as much as we are able while still adhering to the state attendance guidelines. Working as a team in these situations is incredibly helpful for all parties involved. The summertime is a great time to have fun and relax. As we get closer to school starting, it is beneficial to get back into routines or create routines such as setting clothes out at night, etc. to be prepared. Click here for some ideas to help you determine what might work for your family.