North Stafford High Tackles Chronic Absenteeism with Personal Outreach and Recovery Program

North Stafford High School has launched an initiative, Reclaim Souls, to tackle chronic absenteeism through personal outreach. Teachers made over 300 phone calls and conducted over 100 home visits to encourage students with excessive absences to return to school. The school also introduced an attendance recovery program, offering after-school sessions three times a week for students to catch up on missed work. Principal Dr. Dashan Turner emphasized the importance of daily attendance for academic success and student safety. The initiative includes outreach to Hispanic families, positive reinforcement strategies, and plans to expand multilingual communication efforts. Superintendent Dr. Daniel W. Smith praised the program as a model for other schools. Here's the full press release:

North Stafford High School (North Stafford) is taking bold steps to address chronic absenteeism and ensure students stay engaged in their education. Picture this: a team of dedicated educators, phones in hand, reaching out like classic telethon hosts. They’re doing it not to raise money, but to Reclaim Souls and bring students back to school. Instead of celebrity guests and pledge drives, North Stafford’s attendance initiative is all about reconnecting with families, one conversation at a time.

Recognizing that automated messages and broad outreach efforts were not enough to combat absenteeism, the school launched a personalized attendance initiative to directly connect with families and help students return to the classroom. Assistant Principal Lisa Allmond led Reclaim Souls, a telethon-style outreach effort that enlists volunteer teachers to call families of students with high absenteeism. To support this initiative, she arranged for daily building substitutes to cover classes, allowing teachers to focus on these crucial conversations. She also set up a dedicated computer lab with four telephones to facilitate outreach, ensuring as many families as possible received personal contact. Equipped with specific talking points, teachers emphasized the importance of consistent attendance and encouraged parents to commit to sending their children to school. At the end of the call, parents pledged their support to send their children to school.

The results were powerful. More than 300 calls were made to students who had missed seven or more days, and the administration further made personal home visits to more than 100 of those students who had missed 10 to 12 days this year already. Parents were also encouraged to enroll their children in North Stafford’s attendance recovery program, which operates on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 2:15 to 4:15 PM, providing students the opportunity to complete missed assignments, work on projects, and receive help from teachers.

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