📊 Fact Friday: Progress is not the same as recovery. Chronic absenteeism is falling in some states. Districts are sharpening their outreach. New programs are reaching students who drifted away from school. But the bigger picture tells a harder story. Only about 1 in 10 students attends a district where reading and math achievement has returned to pre-pandemic levels. No state’s attendance has returned to its pre-pandemic benchmark. In this week’s Fact Friday, Himanshi Sharma, Senior Director of Product at Concentric Educational Solutions, looks at the gap between an improving trend and a recovered system. 📈 Indiana posted its fourth straight annual drop in chronic absenteeism, down to under 15% from a peak of 21% in 2022. Still, 30% of seniors missed at least 10% of school days during the 2025-26 school year. 🔁 New Orleans helped 83 disconnected students re-enroll last year through its Reconnecting Our Students to Education program. A lower absence rate means little if students leave enrollment altogether. 🏠 Lessons from more than 500 home visits show why two students with identical attendance records often need completely different support. One needs a ride. Another is avoiding an unsafe peer environment. A third has a family who never received the school’s messages. Our 90-Day Winter Pilot, running Jan. 15 through April 15, 2027, puts this thinking to work through home visits, research into recurring barriers and district-level recommendations. The real question for district leaders goes beyond whether the numbers are moving. Is the improvement reaching the students who need it most? Will the gains last? Read the full post: concentriced.org/insights/bl… #FactFriday #ChronicAbsenteeism #StudentEngagement #EducationRecovery

What happens when someone knocks on the door instead of sending another letter? 🚪 Shepria Johnson, our Director of Partner Operations, shares what her team learned from more than 500 home visits in one of the country’s largest urban school districts. Her new piece in eSchool News belongs on every district leader’s reading list. Read the full story: eschoolnews.com/educational-… Many of the families her team visited had never answered a letter or returned a call. Once advocates showed up on their front porches, the real reasons kids were missing school came out. A parent’s work shift changed. An older child stayed home to watch younger siblings. A student faced bullying. School messages went to an old address or arrived in the wrong language. 🏠 None of those reasons appear in an attendance report. Fifteen absences look the same in the data whether the cause is a bus schedule or a bully. Shepria’s takeaway: families want their kids in school, and schools want their students back. The missing piece is usually someone willing to show up and ask the right question. 💬 This idea sits at the heart of our 90-Day Winter Pilot Program. Starting Jan. 15, Professional Student Advocates visit homes during the months when attendance drops most, and district leaders get a clear picture of the barriers keeping students away. Enrollment for the winter cohort closes Dec. 11. ❄️ Learn more about the pilot: concentriced.org/winter-pilo… #ChronicAbsenteeism #StudentAttendance #K12

Winter does something predictable to school attendance. ❄️ A younger brother wakes up with a fever, and his big sister stays home to watch him. A seventh grader looks at a mile-long walk in a thin jacket and decides to stay in. A family spends the holiday break choosing between the heating bill and groceries. Two weeks away from class makes the return feel steep, and by February, a handful of absences has hardened into a habit. In a new blog, Concentric CEO Molly Hebert Loyd writes, “No single moment looks like a crisis. Together, they add up to a chronically absent student.” The hopeful part? Winter absenteeism follows a pattern we see every year, so districts have time to prepare. Molly also introduces Concentric’s 90-Day Winter Pilot Program, running Jan. 15 through April 15, 2027. Participating districts receive: 🔍 A districtwide root-cause analysis led by Dr. Ivory Toldson, our chief of research 🏠 Home visits and targeted outreach from our Professional Student Advocates 📊 Real-time data and a final report through Concentric360 Want to learn more first? Join Toldson on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 1 p.m. ET for a free 30-minute webinar, “Why Students Disappear After Winter Break, and How to Bring Them Back.” Enrollment for the winter cohort closes Dec. 11, and spots are limited. Read Molly’s full blog: concentriced.org/insights/bl… #ChronicAbsenteeism #StudentEngagement #K12

Chronic absenteeism has eased since peaking at 28.3% in 2022, but 22.6% of students still missed 10% or more of the 2024-25 school year, according to the American Enterprise Institute.📉 Winter adds weight to every barrier behind those absences: housing, health, transportation, and caregiving. 🥶 Better notifications won't fix these barriers. Human connection will. 🤝 Our 90-Day Winter Pilot starts in January: concentriced.org/winter-pilo… 👉 #ChronicAbsenteeism #K12Education #ConcentricEducationalSolutions

The snow day call never belongs to the principal. The consequences always do. ❄️ Paul DeAngelis, regional partnerships director at Concentric, spent seven winters as principal of Milford High School in Huron Valley Schools. He saw firsthand how chronic absenteeism grows in the cold. Daily attendance rates hide the problem. A school posts a respectable number in December while a group of students quietly racks up double-digit absences. Ten missed days by winter break mean weeks of lost instruction. A few more in January and recovery starts to feel impossible. Paul’s answer: start in October. 📋 Build a watch list by name and review it every Monday. 🤝 Connect every student with one trusted adult. 📞 Call home early, before the count climbs. 🚌 Meet with your transportation director before the first storm. 🏫 Win the first day back in January and show every student a clear path to recover. Posters and pizza parties won’t beat chronic absenteeism. Names, relationships, and early action will. Read Paul’s full winter battle plan for principals: concentriced.org/insights/bl… #ChronicAbsenteeism #StudentAttendance #SchoolLeadership

Every year, the same pattern plays out in school districts across the country. Attendance holds steady through the fall, then the first hard frost arrives and the numbers start to slide. ❄️ Shepria Johnson, Director of Partnership Operations at Concentric, grew up in Madison Heights, Michigan, and went to school in the Detroit area. She knows what a Midwest winter morning feels like for a kid standing at a bus stop in the dark. In her new post on the Concentric blog, she walks through how the winter dip happens. A parent picks up a second shift, and the oldest child stays home to babysit. The furnace goes out, and the family moves in with relatives across town, with no bus route back to school. A cough becomes a week on the couch. Then winter break arrives, and three missed days in December stretch into nearly three weeks away from class. By mid-January, a student who was on solid footing in the fall has crossed into chronic absenteeism. The longer the absence runs, the harder the return gets. Shepria’s advice for district leaders 📊 Pull last winter’s attendance data Look closely at the weeks between Thanksgiving and the end of January Find the students who slipped Ask who in your community knows those families well enough to knock on the door in February The cold is coming either way. What happens to our kids this winter is still up to us. Read the full post: concentriced.org/insights/bl… #ChronicAbsenteeism #K12 #StudentEngagement #ConcentricEducationalSolutions

October is National Principals Month 🏫 and Paul DeAngelis, our Regional Partnerships Director, knows the principal's chair well. During 25 years in public education, including seven as principal of Milford High School, Paul said yes to a few outside partners and no to most. In his new piece, he lays out the questions every school leader should ask before signing on: Do they take something off my plate? Do they know my students, or only my data? Do they work through my people? How do they treat my families? Will I see progress by winter break? 💡 His simplest test: Ask what your staff will stop doing because the partner is here. If they struggle to answer, you have your answer. To every principal carrying more than most people realize this month, thank you 🙏 Read Paul's full piece 👇 concentriced.org/insights/bl… #NationalPrincipalsMonth #ChronicAbsenteeism #SchoolLeadership

Some students struggle to get to school. Others don't see a reason to go. Plenty face both, and one response won't fix all three. 🚌 This week's Fact Friday from Himanshi Sharma, Senior Director of Product at Concentric Educational Solutions, explores the difference between barriers and motivation in attendance. The roundup covers a lot of ground: Dr. Ivory Toldson on home visits built around possibility instead of enforcement Teens in Lynchburg, Virginia, helping design their own community center, salon, and recording studio included 🎧 High schools testing cash incentives for attendance A Texas district where extra school days didn't bring extra attendance Arizona, where about one in four students remains chronically absent The big takeaway comes down to two questions. What makes attendance hard? And what makes attendance worth choosing? A reliable bus removes one barrier. A trusted adult removes another. A career connection gives school real meaning. 💡 Students don't need another lecture about showing up. They need fewer obstacles in the way and more reasons to believe their presence matters. 🙌 Read the full post: concentriced.org/insights/bl… #ChronicAbsenteeism #FactFriday #K-12 #ConcentricEducationalSolutions

What does a new platform look like from a family's front porch? 🏡 Saquon Frazier, Partner Operations Engagement Manager at Concentric Educational Solutions, has spent four years knocking on doors for students who've drifted away from school. In April, he walked readers through a typical day. Now, with Concentric360 live, he retraces the same day stop by stop. His honest take: technology has never replaced the hard part. The hard part is still a person showing up for a family. What changes is everything around those moments. 📋 Mornings start with a clear daily queue in the Action Center instead of a spreadsheet 🤝 Attendance teams work from one shared record for every student 📱 With the family's permission, the Field Engagement App handles transcription, so Saquon looks at the parent instead of his phone 🔗 Every visit becomes an active case with an owner and follow-up dates For district leaders, every engagement attempt gets documented and measured against a starting baseline. Less defending the work. More planning together. Read Saquon's full post: concentriced.org/insights/bl… #ConcentricEducationalSolutions #Concentric360 #ChronicAbsenteeism #StudentEngagement #K12Education

"I'm not a truancy officer." 🚪 Dr. @toldson, Chief of Research at Concentric Educational Solutions, usually studies chronic absenteeism from behind a dashboard. Recently, he opened the Concentric360 app on his phone and knocked on doors himself. In a new piece for @edCircuit, he shares one visit he won't forget. A mother answered through her doorbell camera, frustrated and tired. Her daughter hadn't dropped out. She had moved to an online learning program, and the school's records hadn't caught up. As the call ended, Dr. Toldson heard her tell someone inside the house a truancy officer had come by. Why do families expect punishment when someone from school shows up at the door? 🤔 His answer: technology should never replace the home visit. Technology should strengthen the visit and protect each family's story. 📝 Instead of logging "Parent Uncooperative," he captured the real context while the conversation was still fresh 🤝 He documented both the challenge and the possibility: a misaligned school record and a fiercely engaged mother who found a better fit for her daughter In three minutes, a Deficit Profile became a Possibility Profile. Read the full article: edcircuit.com/im-not-a-truan… #Concentric360 #ChronicAbsenteeism #ConcentricEducationalSolutions #StudentEngagement #HomeVisits

October is #NationalPrincipalsMonth, and former Milford High School principal Paul DeAngelis has a request for every school leader reading this. 🍂 Pull your attendance list. Skip the students already flagged as chronically absent. Look instead at the ones with two, three, or four absences. They won't be on anyone's report yet. Nobody is asking you about them. And research shows students who miss several days in the first month of school are far more likely to end the year chronically absent. Early absences rarely look like a crisis. A Monday here. A Friday there. A tardy becomes a missed first period. A student shows up in the morning and leaves after lunch. None of these trigger a letter, so they slip by. Paul remembers a sophomore whose absences all landed on Mondays. Nobody noticed, because no single week looked bad. The cause turned out to be weekends at his dad's house across the county with no ride back Monday morning. A conversation with both parents and a ride arrangement fixed the problem. The school found out in February. Paul wishes they had asked in October. His advice for principals this month: 📞 • Look for patterns in which days and periods students miss • Call or visit families before any formal notice goes out • Bring in coaches, bus drivers, youth pastors and others who see students outside the building • Write down what you learn so the whole team knows the story A warm question in October opens doors, and a formal notice in January tends to close them. To every principal carrying the weight of this season, thank you. 🏫 Read Paul's full post 👉 concentriced.org/insights/bl…

Attendance is improving in several states. 📈 But improvement is not completion. This week's #FactFriday: • Mississippi: chronic absenteeism down from 27.6% to 26.5%, yet 115,385 students remain chronically absent • Oregon: third straight year of better regular attendance • Maryland: down from nearly 32% to almost 23%, still short of the state goal • Ohio: Utica Shale Academy added 10 vans with $900K in rural transportation funding. Chronic absenteeism fell 6.2%. 🚐 A statewide rate shows whether something changed. Leaders need to know why. 📊 Himanshi Sharma, Senior Director of Product at Concentric Educational Solutions, focuses on one question: What decision should this number drive? Turn the numbers districts already have into the next right action. ✅ Read more: concentriced.org/insights/bl… #ConcentricEducationalSolutions #ChronicAbsenteeism #K12

October is National Principals Month 🍎 Principals set the tone every morning. They greet students by name, notice who's missing, and make the first call home when a seat sits empty. Attendance starts with belonging, and principals build belonging every day. Thank you to every school leader who shows up so students show up too. 💚 #NationalPrincipalsMonth #ChronicAbsenteeism #K12Leadership

We built AI into Concentric360, and one rule guided every decision along the way: AI recommends, people decide. 🙋 That sounds simple, but it's not a small thing. When you're working with families going through some of the hardest moments in their lives, an algorithm should never be the one making the call. So every AI output in Concentric360 is labeled, sourced, and reviewable. It surfaces patterns and suggests next steps, but it never makes attendance, safety, or eligibility decisions on its own. Technology should support the relationship. It should never replace it. That's true of a home visit, and it's true of the AI underneath it. ✨ We see that as the thread running through everything we've shared this launch month: the problem, the people, the pathways, and now the tech behind it all. If Concentric360 sounds like something your district, city, or board needs, we're ready when you are. Get in touch: concentriced.org/contact #ConcentricEducationalSolutions #ResponsibleAI #EdTech

Attendance Awareness Month wraps up Wednesday 📅, but the work doesn't end with the calendar. Behind every absence is a story worth showing up for 🌱. Concentric Educational Solutions is here all year 🤝. Learn more about our work: concentriced.org/ #AttendanceAwarenessMonth #ConcentricEducationalSolutions

Getting a kid back in class matters. But if that's the whole story, we haven't actually finished the job. 🎓 Disconnection doesn't stay inside a school building. A student who checks out at 15 without support can just as easily become a disconnected 21-year-old showing up in a totally different system, with none of the history attached. Concentric360 was built to keep that thread from getting lost. Early identification connects straight into career exploration, training, and job readiness through our Digital Workforce Center. For workforce boards, that means getting involved earlier instead of meeting someone as a statistic with no context. For city leaders, it means one coordinated view instead of systems that never talk to each other. Getting someone back in the seat is step one. Making sure that seat leads somewhere is the actual goal. 🌱 See how it works: concentriced.org/concentric3… #ConcentricEducationalSolutions #WorkforceDevelopment #YouthEmployment

🚪 Concentric360 started with a knock on a door. In a new piece for @edCircuit, our CEO Molly Hebert Loyd shares how home visits in Baltimore grew into a platform built to reconnect young people to school, training and work. 🏡 Our advocates learned early: The most reliable way to find students who need help is to sit down with their families and listen. 🤝 Concentric360 brings schools, cities, workforce boards and community partners together around one shared view of each young person, so support reaches families sooner. 👉 Read the full piece: edcircuit.com/how-home-visit… #ConcentricEducationalSolutions #ChronicAbsenteeism #Concentric360