MDE outlines Compass attendance initiative to strengthen district supports and common definitions
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Summary
Assistant Commissioner Angela Mansfield told the Minnesota Education Finance Committee that MDE’s Compass attendance work provides training, temporary statewide leads and an MTSS-based guidebook to help districts reduce chronic absenteeism while officials work on shared attendance definitions and data modernization.
Assistant Commissioner Angela Mansfield of the Minnesota Department of Education told the Education Finance Committee that the Compass attendance initiative is a statewide effort to reduce chronic absenteeism through coordinated guidance, professional learning and responsive technical assistance.
"Compass attendance exists to help every single district, charter school, and tribally controlled school in Minnesota improve student engagement and reduce chronic absenteeism," Mansfield said in her opening summary of the program. The initiative pairs a Compass Minnesota MTSS attendance guidebook (released Oct. 31) with three professional-learning pathways and a temporary statewide attendance-support team housed at service cooperatives.
The program aims to give local leaders tools to implement culturally responsive, equity-driven attendance strategies in routine school improvement cycles. Mansfield said 55 participants from 16 districts joined the most recent cohort and that 43 districts have received support across aspects of the Compass work. She described three pathways—building strong attendance teams, data-driven attendance strategies, and professional learning aligned to Minnesota MTSS—offered at no cost during the 2025–26 school year.
Mansfield and MDE staff emphasized the need for shared definitions and coding standards. "We're co-developing common attendance definitions and coding standards," she said, describing pilot-district work to produce a draft model attendance policy and to align reporting so districts can "call an apple an apple." Committee members repeatedly asked about time lines; Mansfield said pilot districts and MDE staff will provide follow-up dates as the co‑development work continues.
MDE also said it is pursuing data modernization to support near-real-time attendance insight. Mansfield said MDE will issue an RFP for Ed-Fi modernization and expects the procurement and implementation work to take months, with the goal of improving how district information systems sync with state reporting. MDE stressed MARS will continue to exist but that the Ed‑Fi work should allow for better real-time attendance visibility.
Officials framed Compass as part of a broader, nonpunitive approach: the guidebook emphasizes root-cause analysis, culturally responsive family engagement and embedding attendance work into continuous improvement. Mansfield asked committee members for continued support of Compass work while the state and pilot districts resolve coding and data issues.
The committee followed the presentation with questions about how youth voices (the Minnesota Youth Council) will be integrated; Mansfield said MDE has engaged council members who prioritized attendance and is working to incorporate meaningful youth participation into implementation.
