TL;DR: 

Improving attendance across a district starts with agreement on how schools record absences and when they respond. In the first Mission: Attendance webinar, Superintendent Dr. Marcy Burroughs explained how Sumter County Schools in Alabama built that agreement by tightening its excuse-note policy, adapting a nearby district’s attendance manual, and using the same process in every school. Chronic absenteeism has fallen from about 40% when she arrived to 26%, and her goal is 10%.

For district leaders, figuring out how to reduce chronic absenteeism starts with getting every school to follow the same attendance process. That means agreeing on how staff record missed days, when they contact families, and what happens after that contact.

Schools can develop different routines around each of those decisions. One front office calls home at the third absence, and another waits until the tenth. Staff in one building excuse an absence that another school records as unexcused. Those differences make it harder to compare attendance across schools and leave families unsure about when the school will contact them or what happens next.

Dr. Marcy Burroughs took on that work when she became superintendent of Sumter County Schools in Alabama. In the first Mission: Attendance webinar, hosted by SchoolStatus with District Administration, she walked through where she started, how she developed a districtwide manual, and how schools use it.

When she arrived, chronic absenteeism was around 40%. It is now 26%, a rate roughly a third lower.

Sumter Started With Accurate Records and Clear Absence Rules

Dr. Burroughs needed a process that recorded attendance accurately and gave every school clear rules to follow.

Daily records showed some of the problems. A student who arrived late could remain marked absent for the day. Students on field trips appeared as excused absences when they belonged under the field-trip code. Before the district could use those records to understand missed school days, staff needed to record them consistently.

Her first policy change concerned family excuse notes. Students could submit 20 a year, and the district considered a student chronically absent at 15 unexcused absences. A family could stay under the note cap and still be well past the chronic threshold. She reduced the limit to five.

Adapting a Neighboring District’s Attendance Manual

Next, Sumter needed one document that set the district’s codes, thresholds, and response expectations. Dr. Burroughs drew on her earlier attendance work in Tuscaloosa County, then looked nearby for a manual Sumter could adapt.

She asked the local juvenile probation office which district had a good attendance process. The office recommended Demopolis City Schools, which had developed a separate attendance manual to address similar problems. Dr. Burroughs requested it and adapted it for Sumter.

For a district leader facing the same task, this is a useful first step. Ask a neighboring district to share its attendance manual. Then review whether it settles the questions your schools face, including which codes to use, how many absences trigger contact, and what staff do next.

Sumter’s manual now includes shared absence codes, thresholds, and a six-step response protocol. Every school uses the same document. Every student receives a printed copy, and families can find it on the district website.

Attendance Recognition Runs Every Week

Sumter also made attendance recognition a regular practice across schools. Each school runs weekly and monthly attendance drives, and the district runs one every nine weeks.

A class with perfect attendance for the week might earn free admission to Friday’s football game or a longer break. This year, the district added a first-day gift-card raffle and a challenge for students with perfect attendance during the first 20 days.

Running those activities regularly requires staff to know who qualifies. Sumter identifies eligible students at each check-in so schools can keep attendance recognition running regularly. Dr. Burroughs said students respond to the recognition.

Where Districts Can Start to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism

Dr. Burroughs calls the decline from about 40% to 26% progress, and she is still working toward a chronic absenteeism rate of 10%.

Sumter’s experience gives district leaders three practices to check first. The first is whether schools update attendance records when students arrive late. The second is whether every school uses the same codes for school activities like field trips. The third is whether staff and families share one document that explains when the school will respond to absences.

Watch the conversation to hear Dr. Burroughs explain how she approached those decisions and how Sumter schools are using the process today.

Watch the Consistency session on demand

The Mission: Attendance series also explores Visibility and Trust. Visit the series page for recordings and registration details.