Are you looking for strategies to help students who have unexcused absences? If so, keep reading.
1. Connect with parents, agencies, or appropriate parties to tell them about the problem; identify the cause of the problem; and discuss potential solutions to the problem.
2. Get the student to document personal attendance at the end of each school day (e.g., have the student keep a record of attendance in the library, office, etc., and fill in the data at the end of each day).
3. Begin the day or class with a success-oriented learning experience that is likely to be highly reinforcing for the student.
4. Give the student a responsibility to be performed at the beginning of each day or each class (e.g., feeding the classroom pet, helping to get the classroom ready for the day, etc.).
5. Praise the student for getting on the bus or leaving home on time.
6. Assess the degree of task difficulty in comparison with the student’s capacity and ability to perform the task successfully.
7. Give the student as many high interest learning activities as possible.
8. Include the student in extracurricular learning activities.
9. Give the student many chances for social and academic success.
10. Give the student academic learning activities presented in the most attractive and exciting manner possible.
11. Have the student’s attendance documented by their teachers (e.g., have teachers sign an attendance card).
12. Talk regularly with the student positively throughout the day.
13. Gather anecdotal information on the student’s absences/tardies. If a trend can be determined, remove the student from the situation, modify the situation, or help the student create the skills to be more successful in the situation.
14. Get the parent to bring the student to school.
15. Select a responsible peer to escort the student to school/learning activities.
16. Consider using a classroom management app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.
17. Consider using an adaptive behavior management app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.
18. Consider using Alexa to help the student learn to behave appropriately. Click here to read an article that we wrote on the subject.
19. Click here to learn about six bonus strategies for challenging problem behaviors and mastering classroom management.
