DCSD Attendance

The internal audit of district attendance and membership for the October Count is ongoing. Initial data identifies two primary areas of impact:

1. Pending Returns: The single largest classification involves absent students who missed nearly the entire month of October, whose enrollment status remains contingent on returning by October 30.

2. Funding Eligibility: A notable volume of students currently reflects part-time attendance patterns that do not satisfy the minimum participation criteria required to generate full or partial funding.

Attendance Challenge Webinar is coming up next week! Join Monday, November 2, to hear how schools and districts across Colorado are using attendance teams to address chronic absenteeism.

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
Monday, November 2 | 9:00–10:30 a.m.

Connect with Colorado educators, hear what’s working in other communities, and bring ideas back to your own attendance efforts.

REGISTER NOW

On Demand Training: Infinite Campus Passport and type "Attendance" in the search bar. There are many attendance options available on attendance for on-demand training.

Resources: Incentives, Recognitions and Rewards

There are many ways schools can use incentives, recognition, and rewards to support improved attendance and engagement. While perfect attendance awards can backfire, research suggests incentives are most effective when they:

• Focus on improvement, not just perfect attendance

• Include short-term recognition, such as daily, weekly, or monthly celebrations

• Provide multiple pathways to success for all students

• Are paired with supports that address barriers to attendance

• Prioritize meaningful connections over expensive rewards

Looking for ideas as you plan your attendance strategy? Attendance Works offers a framework developed by researchers Rekha Balu and Stacy Ehrlich to help schools design effective attendance incentive programs.

Looking for practical ways to strengthen your school’s attendance initiatives? Check out the Attendance Activities School Year Plan (K–12).

Designed for school attendance teams, this tool maps out concrete actions from summer planning through year-end review. It helps teams cut through the guesswork by providing a clear structure to:

1. Review real-time attendance data and set measurable goals.

2. Unpack the root causes of chronic absence.

3. Coordinate targeted, school-wide strategies that address specific student barriers

Questions to Ask When Looking at Your Attendance Data

Infinite Campus has several built-in reports designed to take the guesswork out of attendance tracking. Here are four quick tools to add to your toolkit this month:

• For Early Safety Checks: Consecutive Absentee Report

  • Path: Attendance > Reports > Consecutive Absentee

  • Best for: Counselors, social workers & case managers

  • Why use it: Pulls a list of students who have missed 3, 5, or 10+ consecutive days. Great for running on Monday mornings to catch unnotified family emergencies or disengagement early.

• For MTSS & Tiered Support: Day / Period Count Report

  • Path: Attendance > Reports > Day Count (Elementary) or Period Count (Secondary)

  • Best for: Grade-level teams & intervention

  • Why use it: Shows total days missed and attendance percentages across any date range. Use this to quickly flag students crossing into the 10% missed school threshold for targeted interventions.

• For Spotting Selective Absences: Period Detail Report

  • Path: Attendance > Reports > Period Detail

  • Best for: High school/middle school staff & deans

  • Why use it: Displays period-by-period history on a single grid to reveal patterns—like missing 1st period repeatedly or skipping right after lunch.

Many of California’s youngest students keep missing weeks of school, data show, EdSource, September 24, 2026

Michigan student attendance improves for 4th straight year, officials say, CBS News, September 19, 2026

1 in 3 NYC students chronically absent as rates remain stubbornly high, Chalkbeat, September 17, 2026

Email: lmdelapena@dcsdk12.org
Website: DCSD Attendance
Location: 373 Inverness Parkway, Englewood, CO, USA
Phone: 303-387-9636