How To Get Buy-In for Attendance Investments

TL;DR 

Better attendance means more students learning and more dollars protected for your district. You can win board support by showing the financial upside, pointing out staff time saved, and making the case for attendance systems as a sustainable investment. Here’s a six-step plan you can use.

Why Attendance Investments Deserve Attention

You’ve managed enough budgets to know the math: when more students are in class, your district holds on to the funding you’ve already earned.

In ADA states, even a slight increase in attendance can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars being returned to your budget. That’s money you can put toward teachers, programs, and student support.

And unlike new enrollment or grants, you don’t have to wait years to see results. Attendance improvements can show up on the balance sheet this semester.

1. Start with Your Numbers

Boards listen when you make it real. Don’t talk in percentages. Put it in dollars.

• How much ADA funding is at risk right now
• What you could bring back with a modest attendance gain

Frame it as, “that’s $400,000 back in the budget,” instead of “a 5% reduction in absenteeism.” That’s the kind of number that gets attention.

2. Use Comparative Data to Show Opportunity

If the district next door has better attendance, they’re getting more per-pupil funding than you are. Show your board what closing that gap could mean for your budget. It’s a simple, powerful comparison: “If we matched regional averages, here’s how much more funding we’d bring in.”

3. Highlight Efficiency Gains

You know how much time your staff spends chasing attendance. Letters, spreadsheets, court filings—it adds up. Automated systems give those hours back. Framing it as “20 staff hours saved every week” makes the point clear: better attendance isn’t just about more dollars, it’s about freeing your people to focus on students.

4. Emphasize Sustainability

Board members get it—grants come and go. But when you improve attendance, the revenue shows up again and again. It’s recurring, reliable, and far less volatile than hoping for new funding streams. Attendance solutions aren’t an expense to defend; they’re an investment that pays off every year.

5. Focus on Access and Opportunity

Absenteeism affects every student differently. Chronic absenteeism disproportionately affects students from low-income families and communities of color. Framing attendance as an access and opportunity issue, while also highlighting the financial benefits, makes it clear that the goal is fairness and better outcomes for all students.

6. Point to the Role of Family Engagement

You already know that families play a critical role in student success. When they get timely, personal communication, they act. And when they act, kids come to the classroom. Research shows the difference family engagement makes is as big as the gap between remote and in-person learning. That’s the kind of information that helps your board connect the dots between attendance, families, and funding.

Why Now Is the Right Time

You don’t have to wait years to see an ROI. Districts that put in modern attendance systems see results quickly. With tools like SchoolStatus Attend, you get automated alerts, real-time dashboards, and direct family outreach built in. The outcome?

• More students in class, more often
• Staff hours redirected from paperwork to students
• Clear ROI you can track and present

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This article is adapted from our eBook The Cost of Absence: How CFOs Can Reclaim Lost ADA Funding.

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