District rolls out attendance pilot using AI “nudges”; board hears metrics and school list

District staff described a tier‑2 attendance pilot at an informal Sept. 2 board meeting that will use an AI‑powered communication tool to send automated letters and two‑way text “nudges” to families and to provide real‑time aggregated data to school and district teams. Mr. Butler, a district staff member leading attendance work, said the district is using a PDSA (plan, do, study, act) model and listed three expected outcomes: reduce chronic absenteeism, improve attendance rates and increase family engagement and conversion to supports. “When we reach out to a family, if our follow‑up made a difference and it converted into the student actually leveraging a resource and coming into school,” Butler said, that conversion is a key measure. Dr. Taylor, who presented details of the pilot, said the tool will automatically generate a mailed visual letter comparing a student’s attendance to peers, send interactive multilingual SMS messages with links to resources and flag outdated contact information. “Families would get personalized outreach that’s easy to understand and offers concrete steps that they can take,” Taylor said. The district will track whether families respond and whether they use referred supports. Staff named the schools selected for the pilot: elementary — Hodge, Brock, Haven and Gadsden; middle — Duran, Mercer and Hubert; high — Beach High School and Groves. Pilot participation criteria included principal buy‑in, active campus attendance teams and existing tier‑1 attendance interventions. The presenters said they would use aggregated pilot data to adjust strategies and to learn whether the tool reduces chronic absenteeism; staff cited examples from other districts of nearly seven percentage‑point drops after similar interventions. Board members asked for more rigorous analysis and historical triangulation of attendance drivers. “I do renew my request for regression analysis of the things of the data that we already collect,” said Board member Austin Sprout, requesting statistical analysis to determine which interventions drive change. Staff said some household‑level information is collected by social workers and other casework but may not be housed in district platforms; Dr. Quintina Miller Fields was identified as having case‑level social‑work data collected during home visits. Board members raised rollout and communications concerns, noting September is Attendance Awareness Month in Georgia. Staff said additional support sessions for principals and district attendance teams would be held and that communications work would begin with the district communications office and school sites. The presenters emphasized the pilot is intended to complement — not replace — school staff outreach and social‑work follow up. The presentation included pilot metrics and selection thresholds cited by staff: elementary chronic absenteeism target under 15 percent, middle school between 20 and 30 percent and high school under 30 percent, per the presenter’s description of selection criteria. Staff described expected next steps: pilot launch, real‑time monitoring of contact rates and family conversion, and analysis for possible wider rollout. The presentation was informational; no motions or votes were taken at the informal meeting. Board members asked staff to return with additional analysis plans and clarified that parent facilitators and social workers may be incorporated into the pilot rollout and family outreach.