What is MTSS for attendance?
A multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) for attendance is the same idea schools use for reading and behavior: strong support for everyone, then more help, more personal, for the students who need it. The tier follows the share of school a student has missed, counting every absence, excused or not. Chronic absence is missing 10% or more.
Under 5%
of school missed: satisfactory attendance. Tier 1.
Attendance Works
5% to 9.9%
missed: at risk. Still Tier 1, with a closer eye.
Attendance Works
10% to 19.9%
missed: moderate chronic absence. Tier 2.
Attendance Works
20% or more
missed: severe chronic absence. Tier 3.
Attendance Works
Washington’s state education agency puts it simply: “Addressing attendance is most successful when using a multi-tiered approach.” Start with Tier 1. When most students are in good shape, the team has time for the ones who aren’t. Attendance Works’ advice for the other end: “Don’t wait until Tier 3!”
The cutoffs are a starting point, not a rule. Attendance Works’ training for Washington schools starts Tier 2 outreach for a student who missed 10% or more last year, and moves a student to Tier 3 when attendance isn’t improving with Tier 2 support. States set their own triggers too: Louisiana’s template starts early intervention at 3 unexcused absences in a semester or a 10% absence rate.
What happens in each tier, and who owns it?
Examples below come from the Washington and Attendance Works guidance and the FutureEd and Attendance Works Attendance Playbook, which sorts more than 30 strategies by tier from more than 150 recent studies.
| Tier | Who it’s for | Examples | Who owns it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1: prevention | Every student and family. Students missing under 10%, including those at risk (5% to 9.9%). | Welcoming the first day, clear messages on why each day matters, a call home after an absence, attendance in report cards and conferences, celebrating improved attendance, help with transportation and health. | Every teacher and the front office, led by the attendance team. |
| Tier 2: early intervention | Students missing 10% to 19.9% of school (moderate chronic absence), or who were chronically absent last year. | Personal outreach to the family, a problem-solving meeting and a written plan, a mentor or check-in adult, nudge letters with the real count, small-group attendance advisory. | A named staff member per student: teacher, counselor, mentor or attendance coordinator. |
| Tier 3: intensive intervention | Students missing 20% or more (severe chronic absence), or not improving with Tier 2 support. | Home visits, case management, intensive mentoring such as Check & Connect, referrals to health, housing and social services, a family conference with community partners. | A case manager (counselor, social worker or community school director) with outside partners. |
The tiers add up, they don’t replace each other. A student in Tier 3 still gets the welcoming classroom and the call home after each absence. For Tier 1 ideas, see how to reduce chronic absenteeism, attendance incentives that work and the attendance letter to parents.
How do I write an attendance intervention plan?
Meet with the family and, when old enough, the student. Ask what gets in the way before offering anything. Then write down six things for each barrier:
Barrier. What is keeping the student home, in the family’s and the student’s words: asthma, a younger sibling to watch, a bus that doesn’t come, a conflict at school. One barrier per line.
Step. One concrete action aimed at that barrier: “Nurse calls about an asthma plan,” not “improve attendance.”
Owner. One named person, not “the team.” If nobody’s name is on it, it won’t happen.
Date. When the step will be done. Short horizons, a week or two, keep the plan moving.
Follow-up. When the team will look again, and what it will look at: days attended since the step, and whether the barrier changed.
Outcome. What happened: attendance up, barrier solved, step not done, a new barrier found. Then the next step.
Barrier: Maya’s grandmother walks her to school and has missed mornings after night shifts.
Step: Enroll Maya in the walking school bus that passes her building.
Owner: the community school coordinator. Date: within a week.
Follow-up: At the next weekly attendance meeting, check days attended since enrollment.
Outcome: Attended 9 of 10 days in two weeks. Next: a thank-you call home, then step back to Tier 1 check-ins.
Templates to start from
You don’t need to invent a form. These ask for the same core fields; pick one and use it for every student.
- Attendance Works “Summary of Actions”A school-wide table: number of absences, the action, the people responsible, resources to support the action, and documentation of the reason for the absence and the support offered.
- Louisiana Tiered Attendance Strategy Template (2025-26)Strategies, person(s) responsible and resources for each tier, plus a tracking table: student, number of absences, strategy, communication and documentation, and progress monitoring and outcome.
- Ohio Student Absence Intervention Plan TemplateThe team and family present, attendance so far, absence patterns, a root-cause worksheet, strategies for each barrier, an improvement goal, commitments from the student, parent and school, and plan start, end and review dates.
How do I document and track attendance interventions?
Log each contact and step when it happens: the date, who did it, what was offered, the reason the family gave and what happened next. Keep it in one record the whole team can see. That is how a counselor knows the mentor already called, and how the team can tell whether a step worked or never happened.
Documentation is often required, not just good practice:
- Virginia. When a student has missed five days without the school hearing that the parent knows of and supports the absence, the principal or a designee, the student and the parent develop a plan together, and the plan must include documentation of the reasons for the absences. If the student misses more than one more day, a conference with the family and school staff follows, held no later than 10 school days after the tenth absence (Code of Virginia § 22.1-258).
- Ohio. By August 1, 2026, every district must adopt an attendance policy with a tiered system of interventions and absence intervention teams for students at risk of becoming chronically absent (Ohio Revised Code 3321.191).
Check your own state’s law and your district’s policy for what a record must hold and how long to keep it. These are student records, so share them only with staff and partners who need them; see sharing attendance data with partners.
Do home visits improve attendance?
The evidence is encouraging. In a Johns Hopkins study of Parent Teacher Home Visits covering more than 100,000 students in kindergarten through 8th grade in four large urban districts, students whose families had at least one teacher home visit were 21% less likely to be chronically absent, as FutureEd reported. The Attendance Playbook lists home visits for chronically absent students as a Tier 2 strategy; Washington lists them under Tier 3.
How the visits are done matters. In that model, visits are voluntary for families, teachers are trained and paid, they go in pairs, they don’t single out struggling students, and the first conversation is about the family’s hopes for their child, not the absences.
Does attendance mentoring work?
The evidence for mentoring is promising, and the Attendance Playbook lists mentors as a Tier 2 strategy. In a Johns Hopkins Everyone Graduates Center study of Success Mentors in a large urban district (Balfanz and Byrnes, 2013), chronically absent students who were given a mentor gained almost two more weeks of school a year.
The mentors in that program were school staff, retirees, social work students, AmeriCorps members and high school seniors. What they share is a steady relationship: someone who notices when the student is missing, asks why and tells the attendance team. Washington’s guidance lists peer mentoring at Tier 2 and Check & Connect mentoring at Tier 3. For community-school partners who mentor, see community schools.
How often should the attendance team review interventions?
Weekly, on whatever meeting day the team picks. A short, standing meeting can do three things that a monthly review can’t:
- Catch students who just crossed 10% missed, or whose absences are rising, while one call can still fix it.
- Check last week’s steps: done or not, and did attendance change.
- Move students between tiers, and give every student on the list a next step, an owner and a date.
Bring the data: each student’s rate, the days since the last step, and the log of what was tried. Without the log, the meeting turns into memory and the same student is discussed week after week with no new step.
How BrainBridge helps
BrainBridge keeps the plan moving. From each morning’s attendance file, every staff member gets a list of who to contact today, with each student’s absences and the family’s number and language. Staff call, or text from their school-assigned line, and texts go out in the family’s language. Every call, text, home visit and check-in is logged once. The weekly meeting agenda builds itself, flags students who just reached 10% missed or whose absences are rising, and every student leaves with a next step, an owner and a date. Mentors and community-school partners see only their own caseload.
How BrainBridge works →How to choose attendance software →Security and privacy →See it in action →
Common questions
What are Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 attendance interventions?
They are the three levels of support in a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) for attendance. Tier 1 is prevention for every student, Tier 2 is early, personal intervention for students missing 10% to 19.9% of school, and Tier 3 is intensive, often case-managed support for students missing 20% or more. Support gets more personal and more intensive as absences rise.
What should an attendance intervention plan include?
For each barrier to attendance: the step the school will take, one named owner, a date, when the team will check again and what happened. State templates add the student’s attendance so far, the family’s and student’s view, and commitments from the student, family and school. Keep it short enough to review every week.
How do I document attendance interventions?
Log every contact and step as it happens: the date, who did it, what was offered, the reason the family gave for the absences and what happened next. Keep it in one place the whole team can see, so a counselor and a mentor don’t each call the same family. Some states require it: Virginia’s plan after a fifth unexplained absence must document the reasons for the absences.
Do home visits improve attendance?
The evidence is encouraging. In a Johns Hopkins study of more than 100,000 students in four large urban districts, students whose families had at least one teacher home visit were 21% less likely to be chronically absent. The visits in that model are voluntary, made by trained, paid teachers in pairs, and focus on the family’s hopes for the child.
Does attendance mentoring work?
The evidence is promising. In a Johns Hopkins study of Success Mentors in a large urban district, chronically absent students who were given a mentor gained almost two more weeks of school a year. The mentors included school staff, retirees, social work students, AmeriCorps members and high school seniors.
How often should an attendance team review interventions?
Weekly. A weekly meeting lets the team catch students who just crossed 10% missed, check whether last week’s steps were done, and move a student up or down a tier while there is still time to change the year. Monthly reviews tend to find out a step failed a month too late.
Chronic absenteeism: the numbers, the rules and what works →
Sources
- 1. Attendance Works, “3 Tiers of Intervention”: Tier 2 for students missing 10%, Tier 3 for students missing 20% or more; “Don’t wait until Tier 3!”
- 2. Attendance Works, tiered pyramid worksheet: satisfactory (under 5%), at risk (5% to 9.99%), moderate chronic (10% to 19.99%) and severe chronic absence (20% or more).
- 3. Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, “Best Practices for Improving Attendance”: tiers at 10% to 19% and 20% or more, with examples for each tier.
- 4. Attendance Works, “Early Intervention Strategies” session for Washington OSPI (Fall 2023): the Summary of Actions table and Tier 2 and 3 entry points, including not improving with Tier 2 support.
- 5. Louisiana Department of Education, Tiered Attendance Strategy Template (2025-2026).
- 6. Ohio Revised Code 3321.191 (as amended by House Bill 96, effective Sept. 30, 2025): district policies by August 1, 2026, with a tiered system of interventions and absence intervention teams.
- 7. Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, Student Absence Intervention Plan Template.
- 8. Code of Virginia § 22.1-258: a plan developed with the student and parent after five days absent without parent awareness and support, including documentation of the reasons; a conference if the student misses more than one more day, held within 10 school days after the tenth absence.
- 9. FutureEd and Attendance Works, Attendance Playbook (2026 edition): more than 30 strategies by tier, drawn from more than 150 recent studies.
- 10. FutureEd, “Visiting Families at Home Leads to Better Attendance at School” (Jan. 2019), on the Johns Hopkins study of Parent Teacher Home Visits: more than 100,000 students in grades K to 8 in four large urban districts, 21% less likely to be chronically absent.
- 11. Attendance Works, Parent Teacher Home Visits one-sheet: the core practices and the Johns Hopkins “Student Outcomes and Parent Teacher Home Visits” (Nov. 2018).
- 12. Johns Hopkins University Gazette (Dec. 2013), on Balfanz and Byrnes, “Meeting the Challenge of Combating Chronic Absenteeism” (Everyone Graduates Center): chronically absent students gained almost two additional weeks of school a year once they had a mentor.