Granite School District is located in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is a large urban school district consisting of 63 elementary school, 16 junior high schools and 8 high schools with approximately 69,000 students. The attendance program serves as a comprehensive k-12 truancy reduction program. This approach involves a uniform process entailing collaboration with school counselors and administrators, as well as the local District Attorney’s office and Juvenile Court. Each has its distinct role that drives the ultimate effectiveness of the program. The program is staffed with one district coordinator who oversees the program as a whole and one secretary to assist in the day-to-day operations of the program.

In addition, to a coordinator and secretary, the program has sixty attendance specialists. They are housed in selected schools through out the District to work directly with identified habitual truants and their parent/legal guardian.Habitual truancy is addressed by the attendance specialist in the school using specific interventions designed to engage both student and parent/legal guardian in active, regular school attendance. These interventions include direct contact with the identified student by a caring, positive individual, phone contacts, and requests for parent input, home visits, and attendance contracts. Each attendance specialist is encouraged to develop a “positive”, “engaging” relationship with the student and parent/legal guardian to increase school attendance and decrease student failure. The program utilizes graduated measures to address the habitual truancy issue.

At the beginning of each school year students, parents/legal guardians are reminded of the district’s attendance policy through the registration process. Attendance specialists begin to work with identified habitual truant students once the student has missed 12 days of school (7 excused, 5 unexcused), using the district’s database to identify the students. Once students have been identified, initial contact is made with the student to resolve the attendance issue. Daily contract, rewards and words of encouragement are put into place to encourage regular daily attendance. Parents/legal guardians are also contacted to encourage communication and regular attendance. Habitual truancy notification letters are the next course of action, if the truancy issue persists. The letters are sent at specific intervals that correspond to the number of unexcused absences. In between notifications, attendance specialists, counselors, administrators and other faculty are encouraged to work with the student and parent/legal guardian to promote attendance. If the habitual truancy continues, prior to a court referral the program coordinator conducts a mandatory group meeting with the identified student and their parent/legal guardian.

If the habitual truancy behavior continues, a referral to the Juvenile Court or the District Attorney’s office is made. Data collection demonstrates the effectiveness of this graduated approach implemented by the Granite School District attendance program. Our mission is to work with students, families, educators and the court system to maintain student attendance, support responsibility in a way that will increase student success and decrease student failure.

Written by Tifny Iacona, Attendance Program Coordinator, Salt Lake City, Utah