REL West and Parlier Unified School District Work Together to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism

March 5, 2020

Located in California’s rural Central Valley, Parlier Unified School District is committed to every student attending school every day during a regular school year. In partnership with WestEd’s Regional Educational Laboratory West (REL West), Parlier Unified School District is three years into a community-wide campaign to reduce chronic absence, and the district is achieving encouraging results.

Ensuring students are present, accounted for, and engaged is a critical element of enhancing student learning. Research shows that missing even two days of school in a given month can result in a student falling behind academically. A district with high poverty rates and a large migrant population, Parlier Unified School District reportedly sustained a chronic absence rate of about 7 percent during the 2018–2019 school year. This is one of the lowest rates among Fresno County districts and is below the statewide average of 12 percent, according to the California Department of Education.

Recently, REL West convened with Fresno County Superintendent of Schools and Attendance Works—the nation’s leading organization for reducing chronic absence—and more than 200 educators dedicated to the topic. In this video, Director of Attendance Works Hedy Chang describes effective strategies to boost attendance, and highlights prevention and intervention tactics in place at Parlier Unified School District.

What works for Parlier Unified School District? 

Key to the district’s success is carrying out multi-tiered strategies that improve student outcomes through prevention, early intervention, and targeted supports. WestEd Project Director and Senior Researcher BethAnn Berliner says Parlier stands out because their campaign to reduce chronic absenteeism reaches beyond the classroom.

“You’ve got the mayor, chief of police, groundskeepers, transportation people on board,” she says. “You’ve got high school students mentoring younger kids on why it’s important to come to school. They have posters in the windows of local businesses.”

She says persistent messaging to students, families, and the entire community through banners, a billboard, an infographic, and events, the district’s broad-based campaign is committed to removing barriers to attendance with academic, health, and other supports. The district recently launched its own partnership with a local school-based health center to further promote school attendance by addressing the health and behavioral needs of students and their families.

REL West Partnership: The Central Valley Rural Education and Health Alliance (REHA)

This flagship REL West partnership brings together rural elementary school educators, district and county administrators, and school-based health professionals to strengthen and expand cross-sector approaches to improve student education and health outcomes.

The children and families that live, work, and go to school in California’s rural Central Valley experience some of the state’s most challenging economic, education, and health conditions. Improving conditions, especially for young children, is a regional priority. REHA specifically focuses on ways that schools and school-based health centers can collaborate to promote academic success.

As a cross-sector effort, REHA works with partners from Parlier Unified School District, Tulare City School District, the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools, the California School-Based Health Alliance, and other regional partners to use evidence, promising approaches, and data to address school readiness, chronic absence, school culture and climate, and student health and behavioral interventions.

REL West Resources: Reducing Chronic Absence

• VIDEO COLLECTION: Attendance Matters, Kerman!, Attendance Matters, Parlier!, and Attendance Matters, Tulare!
  This set of videos describes the prevalence, causes, and academic consequences of chronic absenteeism and features how three rural school districts in California’s Central Valley use cross-sector practices to boost attendance.
• VIDEO: Every Student, Every Day: A Multi-Tiered Approach to Reducing Chronic Absence in Elementary Schools
  This video describes a multi-tiered approach to reducing chronic absence and features practical examples of preventive and intensive student interventions that address barriers that interfere with school attendance and success.
• INFO: Helpful Links about Multi-Tiered Attendance Interventions
  Explore resources—including worksheets, reports, and videos—to deepen your knowledge of multi-tiered supports for attendance and how to design your own approach.
• MATERIALS: Reducing Chronic Absence Awareness Campaign Materials
  Parlier Unified School District’s campaign to reduce chronic absence includes a suite of materials that send powerful messages that daily school attendance matters and there is support to help students address barriers to missing school. These materials include an infographic, a billboard, and a checklist to help families.

Questions? Please contact [email protected] for more information.