Chronic absenteeism outreach that starts at 5%, in the family's language, with the barrier fixed before any truancy notice
Outreach starts at 5%, in the family's language, long before the review board.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Chronic Absenteeism & Truancy Intervention is attendance intervention software for school districts. Seven agents keep every student on an attendance ladder, look for a school-side barrier such as a moved bus stop before any truancy notice, write to families in their home language, track meetings, plans and follow-ups, and build review-board packets with every contact cited. Clerks send, liaisons approve and principals refer.
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Chronic absenteeism means missing 10% or more of school days for any reason, and most states now count it in their school accountability ratings. Yet in many districts the first formal contact with a family is a truancy notice after three unexcused absences, in English, and the first family meeting comes after the student has already crossed the 10% line. Thresholds are watched in a spreadsheet exported from the student information system once a week.
The reason a child is missing school is often already on file, in another department. A bus stop moved in a route consolidation, a run of nurse visits, a change of address or a McKinney-Vento flag — but the attendance office sees only the code “unexcused”. Automated calls go out in English because the messaging platform's language was never set from the enrollment form. When supports fail, the review-board packet is assembled by hand, contacts are missed, and the board returns it for lack of proof that the school tried.
Estimated split for one student who reaches the review board, by hand and with the solution. Family meetings still take the time they need.
Seven agents watch attendance, find the barrier and write to families; a clerk sends, a liaison approves and only the principal refers.
Marlow Bay Unified School District has about 48,000 students in 62 schools, and 22% are English learners. At Harbor View Elementary, third grader Jayden B. has just crossed the 10% line. Here is what happens next, screen by screen, in the working solution.
The Attendance agent imports the morning's attendance from the student information system and places every student on a rung: 5% (nudge), 10% (chronic, family meeting), 15% (attendance plan) and 20% or more (review board). At Harbor View Elementary, 98 students are on the 5% rung, 63 on 10%, 29 on 15% and 21 at 20% or more, with 11 movers up and 7 down this week. Each mover carries a tag for why it moved: route change, Mondays, siblings.
Jayden B. is highlighted on the 10% rung: he crossed the line on Oct 13.
Jayden has missed 5 of 44 days, 11.4%: one illness in August, then four days after route 41 changed on Sep 21. His siblings Esther and Samuel were absent on the same four days. Late and early buses are marked above the days, and the five automated calls to the family sit below them, all in English and none answered, although the enrollment form says the home language is Haitian Creole.
The Attendance agent's findings each carry a confidence and a source to open.
Before any truancy notice, the Cause agent reads transportation's change log and bus GPS, the nurse's log, housing, special education status and siblings. Stop 41-06 at Alder St & 9th Ave was removed on Sep 21, leaving a 0.7-mile walk across Harbor Blvd; the bus ran 26 and 31 minutes late, and on Mondays it now picks up at 7:02 AM. There is no housing change and no IEP or 504 plan. At confidence 0.91 it proposes support plan SP-2026-1187: restore the stop.
“Handed to Kofi Abernathy-Reyes · 12.4 s · 6 systems read · nothing sent, nothing changed”
Kofi approves the restored stop with the reason code “School-side barrier: transportation” and holds truancy notice TN-2026-0412 until Wed, Nov 4. Tomás Villanueva, the transportation routing supervisor, confirms the stop at 7:24 AM every day from Thu, Oct 22. The family's contact language is corrected, and a check-in is set for Tue, Nov 3. The same pattern shows for 37 students on routes 41, 17 and 58, so Kofi sends one transportation review instead of 37 letters.
The agent suggests a support; it never proposes a penalty. The department that owns the support confirms it.
The Outreach agent drafts the text, the call script and the letter from the template “Support offered” v4, with no health details and inside quiet hours. The back-translation scores 0.96, above the 0.92 line below which a human translator reviews. Marisela sends it; it is read at 10:51 AM, and Mrs. Nadège B. replies asking for a meeting.
Every attempt is on the contact log, including the five earlier unanswered calls in English.
The reply books a meeting with a Haitian Creole interpreter, and the agent drafts the agenda from the case: the restored stop, Mondays, and a nurse check-in for Samuel. It is one of five family meetings this week, with interpreters in Spanish, Vietnamese, Arabic and Haitian Creole.
Jayden has missed none of the 10 school days since the stop was restored: 11.4% falls to 9.3%. Esther is down from 9.1% to 7.4%. Samuel is still at 11.1%, so the agent asks the nurse for a check-in. Of 23 supports checked, 17 worked, and Diego S., at 20.4%, is escalated.
The Follow-up agent never closes a case on its own; it recommends, and the liaison closes.
The work queue holds 1,470 open cases in the Harbor cluster, each with its next step, owner and clock. Fourteen family-meeting letters wait for one bulk approval. Diego S. was escalated after a missed plan check-in, and students with an IEP, a 504 plan or McKinney-Vento status are owned by their case manager or liaison.
Darnell W., grade 8 at Northshore Middle, has missed 10 of 44 days (22.7%). Packet RB-2026-031 holds 14 items: 9 contact attempts, 2 meetings and 4 supports, each opening its source, with other students redacted and protection reviews signed. All 8 checks pass. Only principal Dr. Denise Whitfield can refer him; chair Raymond Okafor schedules the hearing for Tue, Nov 10 at 3:30 PM.
A packet with a protection review missing blocks itself: Tasha M.'s waits for her IEP meeting on Tue, Oct 27.
District chronic absence stands at 21.2%, 10,180 of 48,000 students, against 24.6% at this point last year, and transportation fixes have worked 78% of the time. The State report checker reconciles the counts by school and student group and finds 3 mismatches, such as a transfer counted twice. Wen Li resolves them and certifies the file before it goes through the state reporting portal.
The same students, seen by the four people who carry them, from the morning's attendance to the state file.
Seven agents watch attendance, find the barrier and write to families; a clerk sends, a liaison approves and only the principal refers.
Imports daily and period attendance at 6:05 AM and 10:00 AM, places every student on a rung, proposes absence codes from parent notes, and tags patterns: Mondays, route-change days, days matching a sibling's, partial days.
Looks for a school-side barrier already on file — transportation changes and bus GPS, the nurse's log, housing and McKinney-Vento flags, IEP and 504 status, siblings — and proposes a support with its sources and a confidence.
Drafts texts, call scripts and letters in the family's home language with the original beside English, checks the back-translation, and logs every attempt, receipt and reply.
Drafts the family meeting agenda and the attendance plan from the case: goals, supports, who does what and the check-in dates, and books the interpreter.
Two weeks after a support starts, measures attendance since, moves the student down the ladder when it worked, and escalates with the evidence when it did not.
Assembles the review-board packet: the attendance record, every contact cited to the contact log, meetings, supports offered, protection reviews and proof of a conscientious effort, with other students redacted.
Reconciles chronic absence counts by school and student group for the state reporting portal, and explains each mismatch.
Approves plans; principal refers. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask in plain words about a student, a pattern, this week's letters or a review-board packet. Every answer cites its source and opens the screen it is about.
Why did Jayden B. cross the 10% line?
Jayden has missed 5 of 44 days (11.4%). One was an illness in August. The other 4 all came after route 41 changed on Sep 21: the stop moved 0.7 mi across Harbor Blvd, and the bus ran 26 and 31 minutes late twice and picked up 22 minutes early on two Mondays. Esther and Samuel were absent on the same 4 days. Every call to the family went out in English.
Which students moved up after a bus route change?
37 students in the Harbor cluster: 14 on route 41 (Harbor View and Seaview), 13 on route 17 (Dockside) and 10 on route 58 (Harbor Ridge Middle). Their absences fall mostly on late or early-pickup days after the Sep 21 consolidation. One transportation review can cover all of them.
Draft the family-meeting letters for this week's new 10% students
They are drafted and waiting for you: 14 letters in 5 languages (6 Spanish, 3 English, 2 Haitian Creole, 2 Vietnamese, 1 Arabic), each from template “Family meeting” v6 with a back-translation of 0.93 or higher. None goes to a student with an IEP, a 504 plan or McKinney-Vento status without their case owner.
Is Darnell W.'s packet ready for the review board?
Yes. Packet RB-2026-031 has 14 items, every contact cited: 9 contact attempts, the conscientious-effort meeting on Sep 16, the attendance plan and 4 supports. Protection reviews are signed. Only Dr. Whitfield can refer him; it is in her queue.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
Rungs, clocks, outreach and privacy rules are settings, versioned, and each change is approved by the Director of Student Services.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Rungs | 5% · 10% · 15% · 20% | Each rung steps up or down |
| Count toward the 10% line | All absences | All absences · Unexcused only (truancy view) |
| Truancy rule | 3 unexcused absences or tardies over 30 minutes | 3 unexcused absences or tardies over 30 minutes · 3 unexcused absences only |
| Family meeting | Within 10 school days of the 10% line | Within 10 school days · Within 5 school days |
| Hold a queued truancy notice | Up to 10 school days | Up to 10 school days · Up to 5 school days · Never hold |
| Back-translation threshold | 0.92 | Below it, a human translator reviews before sending |
| Quiet hours | 7:00 AM–8:00 PM | 7:00 AM–8:00 PM · 7:30 AM–7:00 PM |
| Keep intervention records | 5 years after the student leaves | 5 years · 7 years · 3 years |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample district data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate · “typical” = published figures (RAND, 2025, and AEI on chronic absence in 2024–25; EPI on school bus drivers, August 2025 against August 2019; Rogers & Feller, Nature Human Behaviour, 2018, a randomized trial of personalized letters to families). The 10% line is the US Department of Education's measure of chronic absence; the truancy steps follow a state truancy law modeled on California's Education Code. Marlow Bay Unified School District, its schools, bus routes, students, families and staff are fictional: characters and sample data in the working solution.
Chronic Absenteeism & Truancy Intervention is attendance intervention software for school districts. Seven agents keep every student on an attendance ladder, look for a school-side barrier such as a moved bus stop before any truancy notice, write to families in their home language, track meetings, plans and follow-ups, and build review-board packets with every contact cited. Clerks send, liaisons approve and principals refer.
Outreach starts at the 5% rung, before a student is chronically absent, and the first step is a support rather than a penalty. The Attendance agent tags why each student moved — a route change, Mondays, a sibling's absences — so one fix can help many students, and the Follow-up agent checks two weeks later whether each support worked.
No. Agents draft; people decide. The attendance clerk sends messages from approved templates, a letter with a legal notice needs the attendance liaison's approval, and no truancy notice can go until the Cause agent has checked for a school-side barrier. Only the principal refers a student to the review board, and no agent files anything with a court.
Yes. The Outreach agent takes the language from the enrollment form's home-language survey, not the messaging default, and shows the original beside English with a back-translation score. Below 0.92 a human translator reviews before sending, texts never carry absence reasons or health details, and every attempt is logged with its receipt and reply.
The Meeting and plan agent drafts it from the family meeting: what the family said, cited to the meeting notes, a goal, the supports with their owners, and check-in dates. Each support is confirmed by the department that owns it, the liaison approves the plan, and the family signs it electronically in their language.
The Packet agent assembles the attendance record, every letter, call and meeting cited to the contact log, the supports offered and the protection reviews, with other students redacted. The packet blocks itself while a protection review or a proof of conscientious effort is missing. The principal refers, and the review board chair accepts and schedules the hearing.
They go to their owners first. The special education case manager reviews a student with an IEP or 504 plan before any letter with a legal notice or any packet, and McKinney-Vento and foster youth are owned by their liaison, with truancy notices turned off and barriers such as transportation to the school of origin removed first.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents: your attendance policy, thresholds, templates and systems. It connects to your student information system, transportation routing system, family messaging platform, document management and state reporting portal, and it goes live once every quality gate has passed.
Families enrolled in one visit; staff review only the exceptions, each tied to its proof.
1-min demoSchool Immunization ComplianceEvery missing dose found and named to the family before exclusion day.
1-min demoMcKinney-Vento & Foster Youth ServicesDisplaced students in class the same day, with a ride to school within 48 hours.
1-min demoWe'll run Chronic Absenteeism & Truancy Intervention on a sample of your own district's attendance and contact records.