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Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools says it plans to create a more comprehensive, standardized, districtwide approach to intervening when students are chronically absent — a major factor in learning disruptions and a challenge as the district works to improve student performance post-pandemic.
Superintendent Crystal Hill says that last year, CMS had strategies in place to intervene when students were chronically absent. But the district only tracked the number of absences, and it didn’t track exactly how staff were intervening or if those interventions worked.
This year, Hill says the district is rolling out a standardized strategy and will track how those measures are being implemented districtwide.
“The strategies that we have in place now is not just to simply track if students are coming to school or not, but based on the tier that they’re in, the number of absences that they may be accumulating, making sure that we have gradually increasing interventions so we’re not waiting until the problem is really bad, we’ve been intervening all along and tracking that," Hill said.
Interventions range from a phone call home after two or three absences to home visits starting at 10 absences. After 18 absences, the district refers cases to truancy court.
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