New Attendance Warning Signs: What Every District Should Know
Recent data points to critical inflection moments that district leaders can use to strengthen school climate, improve attendance, and reduce chronic absenteeism.
YouthTruth’s new research on student experience and school safety, combined with SchoolStatus’s analysis of 2024–25 attendance patterns across 172 districts and insights from 3 million school-to-family messages, highlights emerging warning signs every district should know.
Take a Sneak Peek:
New Attendance Warning Signs: What Every District Should Know
In this 30-minute Ed Talk, Dr. Jennifer de Forest, Director of Research and Learning at YouthTruth, and Dr. Kara Stern, Director of Education at SchoolStatus, share effective strategies your district can implement right away.
During this free on-demand webinar, you’ll learn:
- The Best Times for Effective Interventions: When intervention has the greatest impact, and the grade bands where urgency is highest
- Bullying’s Impact on Attendance: The shifts in belonging, bullying, and safety that shape student connection across grade levels
- How to Deploy Timely Supports: Strengthen climate, improve attendance, and respond effectively when early signals appear
Meet the Speakers
Dr. Jennifer de Forest brings a wealth of experience to YouthTruth, with nearly a decade of classroom teaching, school leadership roles in California and New York City, and extensive work on school-based research projects. She holds a doctorate from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and has served as a professor at the University of Virginia, publishing widely on education reform. At YouthTruth, Dr. de Forest helps school leaders turn community insights into actionable data, drawing on her diverse background in education and research.
Dr. Stern began her career as a high school English teacher, later becoming a middle school principal, Executive Director of Math for America, a Head of School, and now education content strategist. A writer and contributor to many publications, Dr. Stern is an education thought leader, creating K-12 resources for teachers and principals. She earned a Ph.D. in Teaching & Learning from NYU.