Driving to reverse the high rate of chronic school absenteeism in our state, ESD 105 has become the exclusive Northwest distributor of the Truancy & Dropout Prevention System, a collection of tech-based tools that are designed to help schools monitor and resolve students’ attendance problems.
TDPS uses data from the attendance rates and individual circumstances of each student to automatically offer schools the recommended messaging outreach and intervention steps that staff members would otherwise have to perform on a case-by-case basis. The system is comprised of four modules, which create and schedule intervention communications with parents, provide truancy intelligence charts (reviewable through such search categories as grade level, type of absence or building site), manage court documentation (for either Agreed Order documentation with families or for Juvenile Court proceedings), and supplies an interventions app that school attendance staff can use to easily review student data while on the road.
A U.S. Dept. of Education report last year showed that Washington had the highest rate of students who were absent from school for 15 or more days during the 2013-2014, with our state’s rate of 24.8% only being exceeded by Washington, D.C. In prioritizing school attendance intervention as a priority, ESD 105 partnered with the Texas-based RaaWee K12 Solutions to bring that company’s TDPS to Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Alaska.
For information about TDPS, contact ESD 105 superintendent Kevin Chase at (509) 454-3113.
