In the past few weeks, schools have activated their Tier 3 teams and support staff to head out into the community to connect with families and students who have not engaged in school yet. These visits often lead to a plan to remove significant barriers to school attendance for families. Last week, Davis leaders pulled their automated attendance reports, added the students with the most absences into a google map, and spent the day driving house-to-house recovering students.

Keeping our YSD students on the roster and not dropping them takes a team effort and a change in past practices. This collective effort from YSD school support staff and central services has districts across the state watching Yakima as it bucks the old practice of 20-day drops. On Wednesday, YSD leads will proudly share the “We Don’t Drop Students, We Go Find Students!” message and data-informed processes with OSPI and state-wide attendance leaders. 

Source: Yakima School District