Program Description
The Unified Operations Attendance Intervention Suite and associated training are intended to increase family engagement and support student attendance. The solution helps educators monitor daily and period-level attendance as well as chronic absenteeism data for each student. Educators can also engage in two-way messaging with families via texts to the families’ personal phones and email. The solution gathers data from a school or district’s administrative system to provide attendance dashboards, customized messaging templates, and options for administrators and teachers to communicate with families. It includes auto-translation features that help administrators and treatment teachers reach parents from diverse backgrounds. The ability to automatically populate a parent or student’s name and real-time attendance data into communication templates greatly reduces the time burden for school staff.
Program Outcomes
A randomized control trial evaluated the impact on student attendance of providing teachers with the Unified Home Attend app and training. 31 teachers, teaching nearly 1500 6th -12th grade students, from 3 DC public schools, were randomly assigned to condition; 16 teachers to the Unified Operations Attendance Intervention Suite training and solution and 15 teachers communicated with parents as usual. Administrators in these schools also were given Unified Operations Attendance Intervention Suite training and the ability to use the Unified Home Attend solution to communicate with families regardless of condition. Semester-long impacts resulted in insignificant increases of in-seat attendance but did substantially reduce chronic absenteeism for students of teachers using Unified Operations Attendance Intervention Suite (effect size = +0.19). These results were significant at the student level, qualifying Unified Home Attend for the ESSA “Promising” category for attendance.
Staffing Requirements
No special staffing is required.
Professional Development/Training
Targeted training is provided for administrators, support staff, and teachers utilizing the Train-the-Trainer methodology. Dedicated training is also available.
Technology
For educators and school and district administrators, the platform is available via web or mobile apps. Parents, guardians, and students need only a simple cellular phone with basic text messaging or phone calling or an email address to participate.