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WESD reports chronic absenteeism down to 24% in 2024-25; district rolls out new monitoring and behavior supports
Summary
District attendance and climate teams reported a drop in chronic absenteeism to 24% for 2024-25 (from 48% at COVID peak), highlighted a two-year United Way-funded FrameShift partnership, and described behavioral initiatives that cut suspension days and created student support teams.
The Washington Elementary School District climate-and-culture team told the governing board July 10 that chronic absenteeism fell to 24% for the 2024-25 school year and described new tools and partnerships to continue that work.
"That goal was met," Principal Rich Morris said, reporting the district's chronic absenteeism rate of 24 percent and noting the district still recorded 4,490 students who missed 18 or more days last year. Morris reminded the board that missing 18 days of a 180-day school year meets the technical definition of chronic absenteeism used by the district.
Morris and colleagues credited targeted site work, district attendance teams, and a two-year grant partnership with Valley of the Sun United Way that brought a consultant group called FrameShift to help with strategic and project planning. FrameShift leaders worked with district teams on run charts and school-by-school monitoring tools intended to help principals track month-by-month attendance trajectories.
The district presented examples showing some schools performed at or below pre-COVID absenteeism levels. Morris said the district intends to connect chronic-absence data to academic performance and to continue the FrameShift partnership and other interventions in 2025-26.
On behavior, district staff reported the number of in-school suspension (ISS) days declined by 471 days and out-of-school suspension (OSS) days by 465 days from the prior year, a combined reduction of 936 lost days and an overall reduction of about 16 percent. The district said the reduction was larger than the modest net enrollment decline and credited student-support teams, expanded interventions and tiers of support for that progress.
District leaders said they will pilot a social-emotional-behavioral screener in 2025-26, increase teacher involvement in student-support teams, and continue to scale behavior intervention specialists and a board-certified behavior analyst who consult on more severe cases. The board and staff also discussed student voice, the role of focusing on root causes such as pandemic-related trauma, and the importance of differentiating students with chronic medical conditions or individualized education plans from other chronic-absence cases.
Ending: District leaders said the work will continue in 2025-26, including pilot screeners and stronger cross-team interventions; staff promised to return with disaggregated discipline and suspension data on request.
