It was written by Dr. Christina VanBarneveld and Stan Baker, September 2023
CONCLUSION
The ATSA: TWO by TEN intervention was successful at strengthening relationships between educators and their students and it contributed to the professional development of educators, but this did not translate into statistically significant increases in student attendance.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Include other stakeholders of student attendance to participate in a student attendance intervention
a. Include parents in relationship building activities with educators and work together to identify
and overcome barriers to student attendance E.g., Apply the Two by TEN relationship building
skills to parents.
b. Include Elders in student attendance conversations and collaborate to identify appropriate goals
and processes related to students attending school.
. c. Include other community members to participate in removing barriers to student attendance.
2. Streamline professional development activities for educators, considering feedback from educators.
a. Keep Live calls since educators valued time talking together about student attendance. The
content of Live Call conversations may be directed by questions of practice related to the
“restorative skill of the month”.
b. Reduce the number of modules and condensed content into 5 video podcasts of about 20 minutes
each centered on specific restorative tools/strategies that address student absenteeism. This will
improve the feasibility of educators finding time to complete the modules.
c. Consider removing or making optional the reflections part of the intervention
d. Make 1-on-1 Live Coaching Calls available for schools that have difficulty with supply teacher
coverage
3. Collaborate with schools to identify projects that will address context-specific issues related to student
attendance.
a. Co-create the application of the attendance work with school leadership in order to address
specific school absenteeism needs
b. E.g., The School will determine which students might most benefit from project participation.
This may include an expansion of the students with attendance rates below 80%.
Attendance data should be reviewed regularly
a. Attendance data should be shared in advance of the research project work
b. Attendance data should be collected during and after any project.
4. Connect projects related to student attendance to important documents, like school improvement plans and
board improvement plans
a. Connect the research work on attendance to school improvement planning in the area of
Community Culture and Caring
b. For participants, connect the research work on attendance to individual Annual Learning Plans.