Skip to main content
Portland Public Schools officials are making a concerted effort to improve the district’s attendance rate.
Last winter, PPS officials sourced student-level data to better understand what brings students to school, and weighed those responses against national data to build recommendations to improve attendance. Results showed students were more motivated to attend school often if they had access to engaging education and felt a sense of belonging.
The district is tackling engagement in the classroom as part of literacy and math goals, so its central attendance team has focused on teaching students about emotional regulation, improving teacher-student relationships, and boosting school safety. (This year’s student survey saw a spike in students saying they don’t go to school because they’re worried about safety.)
District officials have mandated staff across its schools to form data teams to examine the specific reasons that students feel compelled to attend class. Those teams also intervene in cases of chronic or severe absenteeism (missing between 50% and 79% of school) and monitor the progress of new help for those students.
Naomi Orem, the district’s lead on attendance work, told the Portland School Board at a Jan. 8 meeting that the district is already seeing some payoff.
As of Dec. 19, PPS reported 74.24% of students were regular attenders, up 2.3% districtwide. The district has also seen improvements among all of its five focal groups: Black students, Native students, students in poverty, special education students, and multilingual learners.
