Episode 802: A District To Watch: How Forsyth County Tackles Chronic Absenteeism

Ashley Mengwasser:

Georgia schools statewide are on a quest to improve student attendance. In the large district of Forsyth County, consistent practices are making gains, moving the needle and producing audible cheers in the district's 43 schools. Today, two impactful administrators let us in on perspectives and policies they've embraced to achieve the remarkable progress of four consecutive school years of improvement. How do they do it? You're about to find out.

Why hello there. You're listening to the new season eight of Classroom Conversations, the platform for Georgia's teachers. I'm Ashley Mengwasser, same host as ever, except more amazed by Georgia's educators and administrators. This season, production partners, the Georgia Department of Education and Georgia Public Broadcasting conspired to create a series of episodes about school attendance. Let the record show you're here for it.

No need to dig up the past or a particularly challenging time known as the pandemic era. But circa 2020 is around the time attendance waned, and after which, chronic absenteeism peaked. Now in a gradual but triumphant return, districts are undergoing a legislation and school-driven attendance revival. Under Senate Bill 123 passed in 2025, student attendance and school climate committees in each county are working hard toward a written student attendance protocol due by July 1st of 2026. For general information about trends of absenteeism, go back and enjoy episode 607 of our podcast. It's called “A Top Issue to Watch in Schools: The Importance of Showing Up.”

This episode presents a paragon of attendance success. Forsyth County School District has shown improvement year over year for four years and counting with attendance numbers surpassing Georgia's average. Here to spill the absentee data from Forsyth, our two nearly 25-year education professionals, Sarah Von Esh and Molly Lavin. Sarah is in her third year as Forsyth County School's Director of Student Support. And Molly is a career educator who has taught in Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, and is now in year two as principal of Little Mill Middle School. Hi, Sarah and Molly. How are things in Forsyth for both of you, apart from attendance data on the rise? Sarah, how are things in Forsyth County right now?

Sarah Von Esh:

I think we continue to take a look at how we can best support our students and families. That's something that we do every day. One of our mindsets is ensuring that students are safe so that they are connected to school. So we spend a lot of time focusing in on those things to make sure that our kids are ready to come to school and our teachers are ready to teach them.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Very well said. Molly, are you enjoying your job right now as principal?

Molly Lavin:

Absolutely. I think that our students' needs are changing at such a rapid rate, and our families’ needs are changing at a rapid rate. And so we keep ourselves busy and we just always have our ear to the ground to find out how we can best support our families.

Ashley Mengwasser:

For those who are not familiar with Forsyth County, Sarah, can you give us just a district overview of the county maybe geographically, what it's all about, so we can familiarize ourselves?

Sarah Von Esh:

Absolutely. So we are a district, a large metro area district. We serve about 55,000 students. At the south end of our county, we touch Fulton and Gwinnett Counties, and then also border Cherokee, Hall. And then as Gwinnett continues to move up around the lake, that side as well. We are diverse, not only socioeconomically, so portions of our county are wealthy, surrounded by Lake Lanier. We have portions of our county that continue to be more rural, and have more resource needs. And then we also have a growing diverse population. So we serve students from all different countries and all different walks of life.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Forsyth County has changed so much and I love it. Molly, you're one of 43 parts here at Forsyth at Little Mill Middle. Talk about your school. What's the makeup of your school like? Pretty similar?

Molly Lavin:

My school is in the very northwest corner of the county. We border Dawson and Hall County, and we are 42, 43% free and reduced lunch. We do have a lot of generational poverty. We have middle class families, and then we have families on the lake. So it's a very special place. We only have 900 students, but our area of the county does have more need than a lot of the other southern areas.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You're principal now, Molly, but how did you get your start in the field of education?

Molly Lavin:

Sure. I started as an English teacher and became an instructional coach. I was an assistant principal in a county south of Atlanta and then served as a principal in Forsyth County. And now I'm at Little Mill.

Ashley Mengwasser:

And you don't plan on leaving, from what I'm told.

Molly Lavin:

I love it. I live in the community. I breathe our community.

Ashley Mengwasser:

How did you get your start in the field of education, Sarah? Director of Student Support.

Sarah Von Esh:

So again, this is my third year in this role as a student support director, and I absolutely love it, but my first love was as a kindergarten teacher.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Really?

Sarah Von Esh:

So I was hired in our district in 2002 as a kindergarten teacher, actually at one of the elementary schools that serves Molly's school. So I started at Chattahoochee Elementary and that school feeds into Little Mill where Molly is now principal.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You've never left either. What's in the water in Forsyth County? I don't know, but I need some. Tenure.

Sarah Von Esh:

When we talk about our county, the things that keep most of our people there is truly the relationships that we build. I would not work anywhere else. And when I started my journey as a teacher, I started thinking I was going to work in a different county, and I had the opportunity to join the Forsyth family.

And even as our community has changed over the past 20 years, what I love is we have continued to ensure that our students and our families and our staff all feel supported. And that comes from a space of wanting to ensure at our district office that we keep a small feel. So that means making sure that when people call us, we pick up the phone. When we say that relationships are important, we mean it and we do it through the daily work.

Ashley Mengwasser:

And that's a foundational theme, what we're going to talk about today pertaining to attendance. You've taught in multiple states, Molly. How does teaching in Georgia differ?

Molly Lavin:

Well, I don't know if I can say teaching in Georgia, but I would like to speak to the amount of the support that Forsyth County provides. When you talk about what makes people stay, it is the fact that I can call anybody at the county office for support. It is just a completely different level of hands-on getting in the weeds to make sure that all of our kids are successful.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Did you realize in the early days of your careers that attendance would be a foremost concern someday? Is that something that they prepare you for when you're a young educator, Sarah?

Sarah Von Esh:

I would say no. It wasn't something that I thought about. But I will say, particularly as a kindergarten teacher, knowing that kids need to be in school because so much of that learning is hands-on. When I saw students that weren't coming to school, I started thinking about why and really understanding, making that connection that if you're not in school, you're not going to learn at the same level regardless.

Ashley Mengwasser:

What's your take on the attendance issue, Molly?

Molly Lavin:

Oh, well, I started in high school. And so between high school and middle school, I think that you do have additional attendance challenges. But no, we didn't have any training. I do think newer teachers are being trained on engagement as a whole, which is part of the attendance piece. But I didn't think that my journey would bring me here, but it's certainly where I need to be.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Here you are today. Perfect attendance on this podcast so far. So in Georgia, school-aged children are required to attend school each year for 180 days or 900 hours. That's my understanding. And so let's just establish some definitions that can guide our conversations, sort of like bumpers in bowling. If anybody uses those, I don't judge. So define chronic absence, that's missing more than 10% of school, right? And that's for any reason, excused or unexcused?

Sarah Von Esh:

That's correct. So at the state definition, any student that misses school falls into that space of chronic absenteeism when they miss 10% of the school day or more. It doesn't matter if it was an excused absence or an unexcused absence.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Got you.

Molly Lavin:

I think something that is important to understand is it's the percent of enrolled days. So if a student is only enrolled for 30 days, but they take ill, and they're out seven of those days, they will count towards our chronic attendance.

Ashley Mengwasser:

And then truancy is defined as any child with more than five unexcused absences during the year. Is that correct?

Sarah Von Esh:

That is correct.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Okay. Does that happen often?

Sarah Von Esh:

It does. And there are a wide variety of reasons why a student may accrue unexcused absences. It could be that the parent forgets to send the letter in that says that the child was sick. It could be that they truly were absent for an unexcusable reason. Families taking a vacation. There's a wide variety of reasons that students accrue unexcused absences.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Do you find that it's pretty common in middle school or pretty uncommon, Molly?

Molly Lavin:

Oh, I think it's common. I think the reasons behind the absences vary depending on what part of the county you're in and what level of schooling, whether it be elementary or high school. But yes, it is common, and it is something that is a challenge to us. And I don't think it's going to change being a challenge. We just have to meet them where they are and figure out what the solutions are.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You're making great strides here. People might wonder, a lot of folks think of Forsyth as a large affluent district, like would they have attendance problems? But it looks like you're saying these still persist. So what are some of the reasons for attendance problems that you see in your district? Molly, you want to go first?

Molly Lavin:

Sure. So having served in various parts of our county, I do see chronic absenteeism when parents do take vacations. With the onset of virtual learning opportunities, it changed parents' perspectives. So we saw issues with family vacations, but we also saw a lot of issues with mental health. Now that I'm on the north side, we do have access to resources. Some of our parents don't have gas to get their children to school, so if they miss the bus, they just let them stay home. And so it is a variety of reasons.

Ashley Mengwasser:

And you told me Little Mill is a Title I school.

Molly Lavin:

We are, yes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

So that's something to be aware of, yeah, those socioeconomic factors. And Sarah, she mentioned one piece of this, the mental health needs. You said we have the same challenges as the state when it comes to mental health.

Sarah Von Esh:

Absolutely. I think the misnomer is if you have means that you don't have those mental health barriers as well. And while Molly is absolutely right in sharing some of the concerns that she sees with attendance and some of those root causes within her school, I would say the things that she addressed are challenges across our entire system.

So although we are viewed as an affluent school system and we have lots of resources, absolutely, and families who have lots of means, we have 22% of our students qualify for free or reduced lunch. So although we can appear to be a very wealthy community, and let me say we are, we do have a lot of resources, there are people in our community who need continual support. There are families who need mental health support, not just for their students. But when we work with our families, we recognize that our parents may need additional resources and support as well.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You make a great point that appearances can be deceiving. And so it's not even useful to make these sort of broad stroke statements about what a district is like without looking at the data and seeing who your actual students are and what they're up against. So let's do that. You're here today as a model as counties go for improving attendance data. Talk about Forsyth's improvements in particular, if you would, Sarah, just from a district level.

Sarah Von Esh:

Absolutely. So we noticed in 2022 that our chronic absenteeism data was in line with the state, and that was the first time that we had seen that change within our community. So we recognized that there was a definite need, and we put some targeted practices into place at that time. So we moved from about 18% in 2022 to our most current rate of about 8.5%, just shy of that, at our last count at the end of the year last year.

So really taking a look at what resources do we need to provide to our schools and what structures do we need to provide to ensure that they have what they need to make the appropriate decisions for students and families. So really looking at that tiered intervention and support through our MTSS practices and support with our schools and decision making on why are students not coming to school. What are the reasons for the absences?

Ashley Mengwasser:

Root causes as it were. MTSS, we're familiar with here because we've talked about this on the podcast, multi-tiered systems of supports, right?

Sarah Von Esh:

Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Okay, got it. Look at me with the definition. Molly, Sarah credits you with strong and inspiring success with attendance at Little Mill. What does your latest data show over time?

Molly Lavin:

Well, we have been Title for the 19 years that we have been in existence, with maybe one or two years where we were not Title I. And so we know that we have financial struggles in our community. Sometimes those also come with additional struggles with attendance, with achievement. And in the 2022-23 school year, our chronic absenteeism was over 23%. And so that alone was alarming. If we can't get the kids in the building, it's very hard to make sure that they're safe, connected, and thriving. And so we implemented some very targeted strategies with our student support staff. And within one year, brought it down to 15.1, which was phenomenal.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Incredible. Congratulations.

Molly Lavin:

So last year we were 15.1 chronically absent. Right now, it's looking like we are going to be under 10% this year.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Are you kidding me?

Molly Lavin:

Yeah, it's fantastic.

Ashley Mengwasser:

That is incredible.

Molly Lavin:

Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Congratulations. We're going to hear why. I want to explain this to people because you put the dance in attendance because it's quite literally beautiful choreography, what you're doing between the school and the district level. Can you explain Forsyth's collaborative approach to improving attendance? There are district level leaders like you, Sarah, working with school leaders like Molly. What is happening at the district level that you feel is working tactically?

Sarah Von Esh:

So a couple of different things. I want to ensure that we give a shout out where it's due to our student support staff. Our social workers who are the boots on the ground and definitely the connection between the home and the school. So ensuring that their relationships are strong, not only with school-based staff, but that they are walking in the community to go and visit these families, build those relationships, and determine what is the root cause for your child not attending school. How can we match resources or support that's necessary to help you help your child come to the building? That is layered with MTSS work and that root cause analysis that we were talking about.

So looking at individualized data to determine what students do we need to support with attendance and what is the why behind that? Is it something that we need or can support locally? Is it building relationships with the students? Is it using a tier two intervention like a check-in, check-out that happens at the school level with support from our district MTSS staff saying, this is how you execute that work if you're unfamiliar with it.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You have some good strategies there. And at the school level, Molly, you actually introduced me to the concept of Forsyth's verticals. Talk to us about what verticals are and how that relationship works.

Molly Lavin:

Well, we used to call them clusters. We no longer call them clusters. We call them vertical teams. It's just the elementary schools that feed into a middle school and that feed into that high school. It's that alignment. And so in my current school, we are a true feeder, which means the entire school goes to one high school. We have two elementary schools that are clean feeders into us almost. And it allows us to do really robust work because it is, not only within the school, it is within the elementary schools, the middle school, and the high school. When you are in a large district, you have to have those connections to help families feel safe and to establish trust. And it's a lot easier when you have four different schools working towards one goal.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yeah. You're leveraging that upward trajectory for the student so that it feels more like a handoff, a passing of the baton as opposed to a restart. Totally. And you also say that motivating teachers to harness their power has been crucial to the improvement in your numbers. Describe what role you're really advocating for teachers when it comes to attendance.

Molly Lavin:

Well, our student support staff at the school level and at the district level, they are so supportive, and they will come in and they will get any resource that we need. But what we really ultimately need is teachers that want students in the seats and that are going to celebrate every victory that students have. We have a student that is chronically absent and has been chronically absent for years, lots of school refusal. He came in the building yesterday morning, and I heard cheers in the front office. You can't replicate that. And that is just my front office staff, so excited to see this student.

I ask our teachers to celebrate student absences. If students miss more than two days, then the teachers will call home. But they just do a great job at getting to know our students and getting to know what their currency is. When you're talking about boots on the ground making changes, it's that. I also would just like to say, we spent time this year talking about teacher attendance. Because teaching is hard. And when you are dealing with struggles with MTSS and supporting students, sometimes it's hard for them to rally the troops. And so this year we spent time talking about teacher attendance and looking at the fact that a lot of student absenteeism mirrors teacher absenteeism.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Interesting.

Molly Lavin:

And it just totally changed my teachers' perspective. They did like a double take when taking time off in October, because that's typically a hard time, October and February. So that has made a difference too.

Ashley Mengwasser:

That's powerful. Sort of the message, if you come here to learn, I'll be here for you. You talk about culture a bit here, Sarah. You say that it starts when a family and their student walks through the front doors of their school. That's a big piece of this when you want to talk about harnessing relationships. What is the school culture angle here in Forsyth?

Sarah Von Esh:

It's again, all about partnership. It's about seeing a student walk in the door, Molly's story about her front office staff cheering. It makes a difference when the family or that student walking through the door knows, I care about you. I missed you. I'm so glad you're here. That front office staff is often the first face of a school. So when you have a family that is enrolling and they're coming to Little Mill, or they're coming to one of our other 43 schools, having that staff that says, "I'm so glad to see you. What can I do to help you?" That immediately will put people at ease.

And it starts to build the relationship that says you can trust coming to the school. It doesn't matter what your background is. It doesn't matter how you got here, you're here, and we're here to make sure that your child is as successful as possible. Many of our immigrant families have a wide variety of educational backgrounds. Maybe their schooling experience didn't mirror what's happening in Forsyth County or what's happening in the United States. So helping them understand this is what school looks like, here are our expectations. And if you can't meet them right now, here's how we're going to help you meet them. Here's how we can partner together.

Ashley Mengwasser:

One thing I've noticed, just knowing young people, students as they're growing up and changing developmentally, they have a tendency to kind of self-efface and self-erase in ways. So to have an educator, an administrator who cares for you say, "I noticed you weren't here and I missed you." That could be the thing that brings them back to school the next day. Is that true, Molly?

Molly Lavin:

It frequently is. We do an incentivized program through a lot of our community partners to help with attendance. And our students, they will show up because we're going to have an ice cream party. They will show up because they're in a drawing. But what really, again, makes that difference is the teachers and the staff acknowledging that they're here and we're excited to see them.

I don't know if the county purchased it, but we use an app system to text with our families, and it automatically translates to whatever language is the home language of the parent. And that has really changed the way that we communicate because now our teachers are having direct conversations with parents. That didn't used to be possible.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Without that barrier of language. Absolutely. Well, very wisely, your system works hard to ensure what you've just described, that school is a safe, welcoming place, but it's also a place full of resources for those who might need it, if resources are making them miss school. Talk about East Forsyth High School, Sarah, and how it's operating, as you call it, a wraparound community school.

Sarah Von Esh:

So East Forsyth was opened as a community school model, meaning they targeted some different areas that they knew students needed support with. There's a food pantry that's like a giving pantry. There is a thrift shop that's available to normalize, which it's actually something that's kind of cool now, again, is that everybody can thrift and come and buy clothes. So there are clothes that are donated. There are clothes that the kids bring in themselves.

And the model is to become a self-sustaining environment for our students and normalize the fact that anyone can come in and get food at any time. Anyone can come and shop in the thrift store when the thrift store is open. There's a coffee shop that turns around and provides financial assistance in different areas. So we have a lot of different resources in that model, and that is continuing and becoming more robust at some of our other schools as well. So we have a wraparound cohort that has been provided to schools as an opportunity to say, what do we need to do to target the needs of our community, our specific school community? What is it they say they need? And then how can we match whatever those resources are to the needs of that community?

Ashley Mengwasser:

Culturally, this is so incredibly wise and inviting. What about administratively? Can you describe forms and processes as part of the attendance issue that Forsyth uses to track attendance? And how do you use forms and processes to determine next steps for the students?

Sarah Von Esh:

The processes are probably the best space for us to take a look at what differences we can make for students. Many of the things that we do start from our MTSS team, and looking at how can we dig into our data to do a root cause analysis for attendance issues. So at the district level or at the larger school level, that may look like a leadership team walking through an attendance protocol that is truly a root cause analysis. Let's take a look at our overall attendance data and then let's do maybe our five whys. Why is this data like this? Why? Why? Why? And looking into what are some matches that we can provide as far as interventions, resources, or supports when we get to that root why.

When we did that at the district level, several years ago, realized there are multiple reasons why students don't come to school, and different types of attendance issues. So if a student is skipping school, there's a very different intervention that you may provide than if a student has a medical reason why they're missing school. So you have to know the why to address the appropriate intervention to get that child back. If you're just looking at your data overall, you may prescribe the wrong intervention, and as a result, you won't see the results you need.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Add anything you'd like here, Molly, from the middle school perspective to processes. But also tell me in your answer how you are motivating and incentivizing students to be involved in this process, to want to come to school for the drawings, the competitions.

Molly Lavin:

Sure. So we're a feeder school to East Forsyth, and so this is actually a vertical goal of ours is to increase our attendance rate. And we start in elementary school and they know our game by the time they're seniors, but they still show up for those drawings.

When Sarah talked about the wraparound opportunities that we have in utilizing community resources, that happens at the district level, it also happens at the school level. And so whenever we're doing any root cause analysis, we have to ask the people that matter most in this, and that is our students. So we do have a student advisory. And I think most schools have a sort of student advisory student voice. We allow our students to pick incentives. We gather students, that really is like a snapshot of our school. It's not your high flying all A's kids or the kids that come to school all the time or the kids that don't.

We get just a really good cross section of our student body, and say, "What motivates you?" And they will say, "Oh yeah, we'll come to school if we can win Beats headphones," or, "We'll come to school for something as silly as like a popcorn party. Nobody wants those silly markers that you're passing out." But using student voice, even if it's not our students that are chronically absent, using student voice is probably the most powerful tool that we have.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Very well said. What's the communication with parents from the district and school level? You notice a student has been absent. What do you do next? Obviously you have this incredible app Molly told us about, so we are not dealing with language as a barrier, but what is and when and what is the first communication with parents? Sarah?

Sarah Von Esh:

So that communication ideally starts with the teacher. The teacher noticing that the child has been absent several days in a row, and to establish and continue that relationship, we love for the family to get a phone call. Or if we know that there's a language barrier, a communication through that text that says, "Hey, we missed your child. We hope that they come back soon. Is there anything we can do?"

As it becomes evident that students need additional layers of support, that child may go to our student support team at the school level to determine going through that root cause analysis. And then if that child needs additional layers of support, working through an attendance plan that is very specific, it could be an attendance contract where the parent is brought in, and it is truly a problem solving model, but also a connection between the family, the child, and the school that says, "We need you here. These are the things that we are responsible for as a school that we are going to provide. Here are the things that you are responsible for as a student that you are going to ensure you do. And then here are the things that we're asking from your family." It's shared accountability. It's not the school saying, "You must be here." It's not the parents saying, "We're doing everything we can." It is a partnership to problem solve and get that child to school.

Molly Lavin:

I cannot echo that enough. That idea of supportive accountability. If we want to have a high level of accountability, we have to have a high level of support. And that we do, you do, they do, if we're talking about parents, is so powerful. It is a little bit challenging when you're talking about teacher phone calls when students have seven teachers. In elementary school, they may have one to three. But in our high schools and middle schools, they have seven. And so kudos to our teachers who have been really intentional about having homeroom teachers communicate. Our teachers love our students, and that shows in the way that they are intentional about how they are supporting them in attendance realms.

Ashley Mengwasser:

What about community support here? I bet involving community partners has been key to your success based on what I've heard so far. Sarah, who are these partners and how are they involved?

Sarah Von Esh:

Absolutely. We have a robust amount of community support. Through our local nonprofits, our United Way is a great supporter of our school system. We have several local churches who partner with, not only our individual schools that are in close proximity or establish a very specific need, but support our system as a whole. We received a grant from one of our local churches to provide mental health supports for our students, and that extends to some of our families that are in need as well.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Amazing. So you're not duplicating efforts, you're being more efficient.

Sarah Von Esh:

Correct. It is very important to all of us that we don't duplicate those efforts because if we're all doing the same thing, then we're not addressing all of the multiple causes that could lead to a student coming to school in a timely fashion.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Molly, who have been your heavy-hitter collaborators at the middle school level?

Molly Lavin:

Well, of course, the district is incredibly supportive, and they just create a space for all of the players to have a seat at the table, whether it be our faith-based organizations or just local businesses who are supporting us through grants. They just create that space for us. And there has to be vulnerability in that. It's not about being the star of the show or having a picture with a check. It's about taking care of our children. And we have had incredible support through, again, local businesses and our faith-based organizations.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Well said, Molly. How can Forsyth's systems and processes that you've been here explaining today, how can these be produced in other districts? Maybe they're smaller, maybe they're not as affluent, maybe they're rural. Where can other districts start with this, Molly, from middle school standpoint?

Molly Lavin:

I'm in school right now, and a lot of my classmates are from rural schools. And the challenges are different, but the supports are still out there. Our social workers are so versed at finding resources for us. We have, like I said, a very robust United Way. It's about being vulnerable, and saying, "Hey, we need some help in this area. We need help getting our students to school."

The people that will show up, you talked about just showing up, well, a lot of attendance is just showing up. Just show up and we will get you what you need. We will just show up at your house to get you what you need. It is just showing up is part of it. But asking for the help from the middle school and high school level and being vulnerable in that, I think that's where a lot of people just need to start.

Sarah Von Esh:

I want to highlight some of the work that Molly and her vertical team did with your Back to School Bash.

Molly Lavin:

Oh yeah.

Sarah Von Esh:

I think when you're talking about community partners meeting the community with its needs and where they are, if we have time, I'd love for Molly to just talk a little bit about how that Back to School Bash created an environment where people could come together, get what they needed, and also feel welcome in her building.

Ashley Mengwasser:

What is Back to School Bash, Molly?

Molly Lavin:

It just started last year. It's our first annual. We'll do another one next year. But it was the dream of really my student support team. They said, "I want to have a big event where we can get a lot of resources and we can just make this middle school the community, the hub of the community." And so we planned four hours a day before school started back. It was a Saturday. And we made sure that we had new shoes. We had about 200 pairs of new shoes for families to have. We had school supplies. We had brand new clothing. We had hairstylists come in and provide haircuts to our families. We had a medical clinic there to provide school physicals. We had a dental office there. And we were not anticipating, I don't know, maybe we were thinking maybe we'll have four hours, we might get 200 families in. Well, within the first hour, all of our school supplies were gone.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Oh my goodness.

Molly Lavin:

Families were leaving in tears just with all of their blessings. The line to get haircuts was out the door. But it was so beautiful because, again, that vulnerability in saying, thank you for providing this, it was an absolute smashing success.

Ashley Mengwasser:

That is a tradition that students and their families can look forward to that makes returning to school exciting after summer, obviously. And sometimes you might find, I imagine, that serving your district in the best possible way to improve attendance sometimes means creating your own toolkit. So I want to, just before we go, talk about this wonderful guidance document that your colleague Kristin created, Sarah, Forsyth's Assistant Director of Student Support. Yeah?

Sarah Von Esh:

Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

It's an attendance problem-solving tool. What is this that she created and how does it work?

Sarah Von Esh:

So it truly is just exactly what you said. It's a problem-solving tool. So at the top of it, it talks about if you were to highlight one particular student or a group of students, and then the different reasons for an absence. And trying to, again, as we initially talked about target, is the student absent for a medical reason? Is the student tardy? Is the student absent for an unknown reason? Are they missing school because of a mental health concern? What is the reason behind the absence? And it could be that a student has all of those reasons. So looking at if they're missing, let's just make up a number, 15 days. Of those 15 days, how many were absent? How many were tardies? What was the reasoning behind that if you know it? And if it's unknown, what can you do to gather data to support finding out?

Once you've determined that, the next base is how do you want to provide support? What supports do you have available to you at the school level? Is that a need for getting the nurse involved? Is it a need to make sure that student has a trusted adult? Maybe it's somebody who's new to the school and they don't feel comfortable sharing the reason for their absence. So getting a trusted adult partnered with that student to say, "I care about you. What can we do to help?" Providing those basic tier one interventions. If those aren't necessary or needed, or those have already been completed, then moving into that tier two level of support.

Do we need to look at a prescribed check-in, check-out? You're going to come in three days a week into the media center. We're going to sit down. I'm going to give you some strategies one-on-one. We're going to spend some time together. And then I'm going to check out with you again at the end of the day and say, "Hey, did you use those strategies? How did it work? What's happening?" So that's twofold. You're growing a skillset within a student, but then also growing a relationship. So that student is recognizing if it's Molly who's doing that check-in, check-out, she really does care about me. She cares about me, and I'm accountable for my behavior or I'm accountable for that skillset at the end of the day because I know she's going to ask me. And then growing that circle of support, if we need to move to district level support, if we need to move to a social worker, and that social worker becoming involved with that family again to determine what are our barriers and how can we address them.

Ashley Mengwasser:

It sounds like a great diagnostic for identifying what the problem is and determining next steps. But you know what I like about it? Kristin pointed this out. She said sometimes you do the guidance document and you find that the particular student doesn't need an intervention. There's just a need for increased communication around one small piece of it. So it's also saving our teachers and our administrators time if there is a better solution here, right?

Sarah Von Esh:

Exactly.

Ashley Mengwasser:

I can advocate for this any day, Sarah. Call me in. Okay. In summary, as a short to-do for our other districts listening, what is your parting advice for them? What is one thing they can do to be successful in continually improving student attendance? Whoever would like to go first.

Sarah Von Esh:

It sounds trite, but I think it's the most important thing we can do. It is to build a partnership and a relationship with the family. And that's a two-way street. And we recognize that sometimes our families are resistant to that, or we provide resources or we provide the level of support and they're not open to it. But that doesn't mean you stop trying.

Molly Lavin:

I just echo what Sarah says. And at the school level, it's boots on the ground. Every single person, you talk about check-in, check-out. You can't just have one person doing that. It takes all of the teachers. And so I think having a very specific vision for where you want your school to go and making sure that your teachers understand that having kids in the seats is the very foundation of that vision. They will run through a wall for you.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Molly, Sarah, you are true wayshowers. Thank you for being here today. I know you have important things to attend to back at your district, so I'll let you get back to that. But for our audience, forsooth, Forsyth is a district to watch. Educators, as you've heard today, all schools must follow the state's attendance policies, yes. But the “how” is your blank canvas. Your local systems must determine student attendance protocols that inspire student participation, promote parent engagement, and invite community collaboration. Go forth with gusto with Sarah and Molly's insights as the wind beneath your wings. You're a great leader. This episode is one of several on the topic of attendance this season. Don't miss a beat. I'll be present and accounted for behind this microphone. Until next week's drop, I'm Ashley. Goodbye for now.