SchoolStatus Attend Wins 2026 Tech & Learning Award of Excellence

Sacramento, CA—September 21, 2026—SchoolStatus, the leading provider of K-12 attendance and family engagement solutions, was named a winner in the Tech & Learning Awards of Excellence: Back to School 2026. The industry-leading attendance solution, SchoolStatus Attend, was recognized for helping districts address chronic absenteeism, engage families, and support student success.

The Tech & Learning Awards editorial team shared, “The 2026 awards saw an impressive range of products and solutions designed to meet the evolving needs of today’s education sector. Our expert judges were particularly impressed by the quality, innovation, and practical impact demonstrated by this year’s winners. Each winning product has shown its ability to support educators and learners in meaningful ways, and we’re delighted to recognise their achievements. Congratulations to all of this year’s well-deserved winners.”

Tech & Learning Awards of Excellence highlight the products and solutions making a meaningful difference to educators and learners. The Back to School awards recognize products and solutions that demonstrate versatility, value, innovation, and the ability to address real-world challenges across today’s education landscape. Evaluated by a panel of experienced education technology experts, the awards showcase the products and solutions that are helping educators deliver more engaging, effective, and innovative teaching and learning experiences as the new academic year gets underway.

“A student can miss hours of instruction without ever being marked absent for a full day,” said Dr. Kara Stern, Director of Education at SchoolStatus. “Attend helps districts capture that missed learning time, apply their own state and local attendance requirements consistently, and reach families before an attendance pattern becomes harder to change. With Positive Notes, educators can also recognize progress and make encouragement part of the attendance process.”

In the 2025–26 school year, chronic absenteeism across SchoolStatus Attend districts fell from 21.74% to 20.30% among 1.24 million students. That rate was more than two percentage points below the national average of 22.60%, and the year-over-year decrease represents almost 18,000 fewer students experiencing chronic absenteeism.

Looking at two years of post-pandemic data, chronic absenteeism in SchoolStatus districts decreased by an average of 18% after one year and 36% by the end of two years. Over roughly the same period, the national average decreased by 3.83%.

Many individual districts achieved even larger gains. 

• Alvord Unified School District in California reduced chronic absenteeism by 24% in one year, with improvement at every grade level
• Corsicana Independent School District in Texas cut chronic absenteeism nearly in half and raised high school attendance—historically the hardest rate to move—to 94.4%

SchoolStatus Attend tracks attendance by hour or class period, including rolling windows, block schedules, and different schedules across school sites. Districts configure their state and local rules once, and Attend then applies the correct thresholds automatically.

Positive Notes provide editable message templates, translated into more than 130 languages, that educators can use to recognize improved or consistent attendance directly from SchoolStatus Attend.

These capabilities expand SchoolStatus Attend’s existing attendance tracking, reporting, and intervention tools. Data flows directly from the district’s student information system, allowing Attend to identify students at risk of chronic absenteeism within the first 60 instructional days. Districts can then initiate personalized digital or mailed outreach in each family’s home language.

Districts use SchoolStatus Attend to identify risk early, send consistent outreach, document attendance barriers, and give staff more time to connect with students and families.

Learn more about SchoolStatus Attend at schoolstatus.com/attend and join the nationwide Mission: Attendance initiative at schoolstatus.com/mission-attendance.

Media Contact

Annmarie Ely
Zer0 to 5ive for SchoolStatus
[email protected]
267.454.4686