Agenda Item
a. EveryDay Labs Attendance Intervention (Not to exceed $121,733) (Updated 10.10.2023)
Summary: Presented by: Kisha K. Towns, Ph.D., Chief, Wrap Around Services, Division of Equity and Student Empowerment
Request: It is requested that the Board of Education approve the purchase of EveryDay Labs in an amount not to exceed $121,733 for all Horizon Schools.
Why: EveryDay Intervention is proven to reduce absenteeism among students from communities experiencing marginalization. Research shows chronic absence disproportionately affects students due to systemic barriers. EveryDay Intervention provides families of these students with proactive support that helps them access learning opportunities. EveryDay Intervention is a research based and proven effective solution that promotes student achievement by reducing absences and increases access to learning opportunities.
Details: EveryDay Intervention, is the only PreK-12 attendance intervention to receive the Strong Evidence rating from Evidence for ESSA out of Johns Hopkins University. The program delivers a 11-15% reduction in chronic absence rates by proactively engaging families with information and resources that help them overcome barriers to student attendance. This is a web-based platform that provides real time analysis of attendance trends and patterns at the district, school, and student level. With easy-to-understand data cuts and visualizations, this powerful tool allows attendance and MTSS teams to identify and target interventions aligned to systemic and individual attendance barriers. Paired with the professional learning, practitioners will be able to use real-time district data to further develop their teams and intervention strategies. The professional learning is designed to help increase the efficacy of district and school attendance initiatives. At the core of each is the understanding that more equitable access to information and resources fosters a culture of success for students, families, and educators.
The program harnesses the power of absence data as an early warning indicator. When students in the district are at-risk of becoming off track for success, missing 5% or more of days, their families automatically begin to receive personalized, differentiated nudges via text and mail.
The nudges help prevent one-off absences that add up to missed learning milestones. The nudges honor families’ agency over attendance by:
Offering a problem-solving partnership that makes support more accessible
Providing clear information about the number of and dates of absences
Helping them make connections between attendance and their student’s success
Developing strong attendance habits early to help prevent and reduce chronic absence
Program steps:
Step One: EveryDay Labs develop a customized communication calendar that will maximize the impact of the program based on your district’s academic calendar.
Step Two: They receive daily attendance data by automating or integrating with your Student Information System and begin to monitor student attendance.
Step Three: They send families personalized nudges by text and mail, in their home language. The nudges are differentiated based on a student’s grade level, school, and level of absenteeism. For help with attendance barriers, families can access supports via our on-demand Family Support Bot or multilingual Family Support Team.
Step Four: They provide actionable reporting twice a year to help districts identify trends, patterns, and barriers to attendance, as well as weekly downloadable reports, along with up to two check-in surveys to help get qualitative feedback from families.
Financial impact: The estimated cost is $121,733 dollars per year based on 15,752 students: Program Management & Design $10,000 and Analytics Licenses (text nudges & support bot, mail nudges, check-in surveys, EveryDay Pro MTSS Platform) $118,140,00 with a discount of $6,407.00.
The purchase amount not to exceed $121,733 will be paid using: ESSER and Title IV Funds.
Contact: Kishia K. Towns Ph.D., Chief, Wrap Around Services, Division of Equity and Student Empowerment, 678-676.1913
Effective: SY23-25
Reducing Student Absenteeism
in the Early Grades by Targeting
Parental Beliefs: A Summary of
Research
November 2020
A Summary of Research 1
Executive Summary
Attendance predicts outcomes for students, and increasing attendance improves student
achievement. However, successful evidence-based attendance initiatives are often difficult to
implement due to logistical and financial constraints. In this study, Carly Robinson, Monica Lee,
Dr. Eric Dearing, and Dr. Todd Rogers replicated the results of previous research by implementing
and evaluating a low-lift and scalable intervention to address absenteeism in Grades K–5. By
using behavioral science insights and mailing personalized attendance nudges to families
of high-absence students, they developed an effective intervention that decreased chronic
absenteeism by 14.9% across all demographics.
Research at a Glance
10 Districts across California
Urban, suburban, and rural elementary districts
Participating 31.74% 18.38%
42,000+
grades: bilingual economically
students learners disadvantaged
K–5
This research brief is a summary of original research published in the American
14.9%
Educational Research Journal: Strong Evidence
reduction in chronic
under ESSA
absenteeism
Robinson, C. D., Lee, M. G., Dearing, E., Rogers, T. (2018). Reducing student
absenteeism in the early grades by targeting parental beliefs.
American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 55(6), pp. 1163–1192.
2 Reducing Student Absenteeism in the Early Grades by Targeting Parental Beliefs A Summary of Research 3
Background Methodology
The belief that regular school attendance is important for student success isn’t new, but the The research team built upon previous research conducted by Dr. Todd Rogers, implementing
mounting evidence in support of this idea is. Poor attendance is increasingly associated with: an evidence-based intervention to harness the power of families to raise attendance. The
intervention targeted the misbeliefs that families have about attendance with the goal of
correcting the misunderstandings and reframing the importance of attendance. Families of
students in the lowest 60% of attendance bands across 10 urban, suburban, and rural school
districts in California received up to six mailed attendance updates.
Lower literacy Lower standardized Lower graduation
These personalized attendance nudges:
proficiency by test scores in ELA and college
Grade 3 and math enrollment rates
• Included the student’s attendance data
• Were written in the home language of the family
• Helped families understand the vital relationship between attendance and achievement,
As research links attendance to these crucial outcomes, there have been recent national initiatives
especially as it relates to year-over-year academic performance
to address absenteeism in schools. Absenteeism is a challenge that spans all grade levels.
Developing strong attendance habits begins as early as kindergarten, and lower grade
absenteeism can lead to increased and chronic absenteeism in the upper grades as well. The impact of the intervention was evaluated through a randomized controlled trial (RCT).
The causes of absenteeism are complex and varied, and can include transit problems, illness, Partner districts provided data exports from their student information system to the research
family obligations, and other factors. Moreover, effective, evidence based attendance interventions team. Based on that data, families of more than 42,000 students were randomly selected to
like mentors for high-absence students tend to be costly and not scalable. receive a mailed intervention or to be in the control (no treatment) group. This method is the gold
standard for evaluating efficacy under ESSA.
Families are an underutilized resource for absence prevention. They have significant agency
over student attendance, especially in the early grades. There are a couple of reasons why, despite
their agency, families might not be doing everything in their power to get their children to school. Key Outcome
The first misconception is that families underestimate the importance of the learning that occurs
in the early grades. This problem can be exacerbated by factors such as distrust of schools or
The personalized attendance updates were effective at reducing absences by 7.7%, and in
a lack of curriculum’s cultural relevance for families from diverse backgrounds. Research shows
reducing chronic absenteeism by 14.9% in comparison to the control group.
that if people are explicitly told that something matters, their perception of it changes, and they
value it more. The second misconception is that families of higher-absence students think their
children have the same or better attendance than their children’s peers. Targeting these two
misconceptions has the potential to change families’ beliefs and shift behavior around attendance.
4 Reducing Student Absenteeism in the Early Grades by Targeting Parental Beliefs A Summary of Research 5
Impact Discussion
This study shows that reframing families’ misbeliefs and providing strategic, consistent updates
about student attendance has the power to decrease absenteeism. The intervention:
• Was more effective for students with worse attendance
• Had a bigger effect for students from
socioeconomically disadvantaged families
• Had a larger impact for students from families
whose home language is Spanish
The implementation is low lift, requiring minimal work from district partners other than providing
data. The intervention provides evidence-based universal prevention and early intervention
for students with higher levels of absenteeism. This study showed that the intervention was
replicable and has a consistent impact across districts despite differences in urban, suburban,
and rural communities.
Families want their children to succeed in school, and attendance is an area where families
have significant agency. Districts need to empower and partner with families so they can
effectively support their children’s attendance.
To learn more, visit:
everydaylabs.com
For more information about this brief, please contact info@everydaylabs.com.
© 2020 EveryDay Labs
6 Reducing Student Absenteeism in the Early Grades by Targeting Parental Beliefs
© 2020 EveryDay Labs
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