Hey Reader,
Last week I shared a simple idea:
Attendance is access.
Students have to be present before they can access the teachers, relationships, interventions, activities, and opportunities we work so hard to provide.
But percentages can make this work feel clinical.
So today, I want you to meet Max.
Max was new to our school. He was introverted, quiet, and easy to miss. He wasn’t causing problems. He wasn’t demanding attention. Academically, he was doing just enough to quietly float under the radar. He was also missing a lot of school.
For the first few weeks, I tried to engage him.
“How was your weekend?”
“Favorite pizza topping?”
“Anything I can do to help you?”
Nothing.
A quiet mumble. A short answer. Barely any emotion.
Then one afternoon, as Max walked past me on his way to the bus, I tried something different.
I didn’t ask a question.
I didn’t say a word.
I simply held out my fist.
Fist bump.
His face lit up.
And in that tiny moment, I realized we had connected.
The next morning he stepped off the bus.
Fist bump.
Smile.
The next afternoon?
Fist bump.
Smile.
It became our thing.
I could ask Max ten questions and get almost nothing.
But that simple fist bump?
Ear-to-ear smile. Every single time.
Max didn’t need a bigger conversation.
He needed the right connection.
And sometimes that’s the work.
Find the connection. Keep it simple. Let it grow organically. Make people feel seen.
As his absences began to add up, something else started happening.
Max wasn’t just missing assignments.
He was missing moments.
The conversation with a teacher that could have made something click.
The inside joke with his classmates.
The extra help he needed.
The high five in the hallway.
The routine of knowing where to go, what to do, and that he belonged there.
And the more school he missed, the harder coming back became.
That’s the part of chronic absenteeism that a percentage can’t show us.
There is a student behind every number.
And sometimes that student doesn’t need a lecture first.
They need a bridge back.
That realization has changed the way I think about attendance.
For a long time, the question sounded something like:
“How do we get this student to come to school?”
But I think there’s a better question:
“What can WE build that makes it easier for this student to reconnect with school?”
That moves attendance from being solely a student problem to also being a systems opportunity.
What systems ensure someone notices when Max begins to drift?
What systems help us respond before five absences become ten?
What systems help students feel known, noticed, needed, and welcomed when they return?
Because the goal isn’t intervention.
The goal is restoration.
Restoring the routine.
Restoring the relationship.
Restoring the connection.
Restoring access to opportunity.
That idea is at the heart of the Attendance Lab.
I recently recorded a quick 60-second video explaining why I built it and how I believe schools can approach chronic absenteeism differently.
Next week, I’m going to take this conversation one step further.
Because eventually every school leader has to move from:
“We have an attendance problem.”
to
“What are we going to do about it?”
In Illinois, new summative designation data is available for preview on 10/1, that question is about to become very real for a lot of schools.
Until then, remember:
Every percentage has a name.
For me, one of those names is Max.
In case you missed it. Here is last week's introduction to the Attendance Lab.
If chronic absenteeism is on your radar this year, I’ve also created a short Attendance Lab Sneak Peek that gives you a look inside what I’m building.
Take a look at the Attendance Lab Sneak Peek here.
HIT reply and lets continue this conversation >>>
Tom
#TeamBOOM
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