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Attendance tracking and Synergy reporting problems highlighted as attendance slips in parts of district
Summary
District staff told the board attendance remains uneven, with about 18 students consistently absent; they also flagged difficulties extracting chronic-absence lists from the Synergy student information system and said staff will pursue training and potential system changes.
Port Orford-Langlois SD 2CJ staff reported concerns about attendance trends and the district's ability to pull reliable reports from its student information system. "I've got those 18 students that are pretty consistently not attending school," said the principal who presented the attendance summary (Principal, speaker S7), describing outreach (phone calls, letters and counselor follow-up) and local classroom strategies to improve engagement.
Board members and staff also raised problems pulling a 10% chronic-absence list from Synergy. S4 told the group that the district pays for a system that should produce those reports: "We pay, you know, significant money to have a data system that we should be able to pull a ton of stuff out of," the member said. Staff acknowledged recent staffing gaps (the district's data lead, Britney, returned from leave in January), said they have people attending Synergy trainings this week and predicted improved reporting, and noted they are evaluating PowerSchool as a possible alternative pending financial analysis.
Staff explained the district uses weekly monitoring and a tiered-letter process for chronic-absence outreach: an initial administrative letter, follow-up phone calls by counselors and escalation if problems continue. The district also described correlational observations: structured classroom choices and the use of an "eagle's nest" regulation space appear to reduce behavioral referrals and improve in-class attendance.
Next steps recorded in the workshop included continuing Synergy staff training, sharing spreadsheets that track at-risk students, and a possible long-term procurement evaluation to determine whether a different SIS (PowerSchool) would better meet reporting needs. Board members asked staff to continue refining data pulls and to report back with the chronic-absence list and any budget implications for a system replacement.
