WISEdash for Districts User Guide: Attendance and Absenteeism

Purpose of the attendance-related dashboards

Some of these dashboards help you find patterns of data quality issues, some provide early warnings that help school staff focus their efforts on students with the greatest needs, and some aid improvement planning efforts. 

View data in attendance-related dashboards

Steps for All Dashboards:

1. From the WISEhome and WISEsecure Login Information page, log in to WISEhome.
2. Open WISEdash for Districts.
3. Click Dashboards in the upper-left corner.

Once you are in the desired dashboard...

1. Notice the preselected filters above the dashboard's data (if data displays already). These are based on system defaults or on the filters you set in a previous dashboard within the same session.
   • For example, if you selected the Green Bay Area Public District in a previous dashboard during this session, the system uses this district for subsequent dashboards.
2. If the dashboard displays no data, read the message under the filters. The message tells you which filter(s) you still need to select for it to return data.
3. Click the  More info icon to view the table as a pop-up window.
4. The tabs at the top of the pop-up window display:
   • Content: a visual display of data (i.e.. line, graph, bar graph, table).
   • Data: a table display of the assessment data in chronological order.
   • Definitions: terms that define aspects of this data.
5. Click Close in the lower right or X in the upper right to close this window and return to the previous screen.

Topics Dashboards:

Use these dashboards to track average daily attendance, attendance rates, and dropout rates.

Steps for Topics Dashboards

1. From the Dashboards dropdown, select Topics. Select Attendance-Dropouts.
2. At the top of the dashboard, click the phrase Attendance-Dropouts with a dropdown arrow next to it.
3. Select the precise dashboard for your needs.
   • Dropout Rate by Subgroup
   • Average Daily Attendance/Membership
   • Attendance Rate - All Subgroups
   • Attendance Rate by Subgroup
4. Follow the steps for All Dashboards above to filter and get more information about the data.

NOTE: Only users with the user role "Economic Indicator Analyst" in WISEdash for Districts can access the subgroups "Economic Disadvantaged" and "Homeless."

Advanced Analysis Dashboards:

Use the "Gap in Attendance Rate" graph in the Achievement Gap Dashboard to track the difference in attendance rates across different groups of students within a single school year. This provides an early warning so your school staff can help students and families get back on track. Or, use the "Gap in Attendance Rate" graph in the Achievement Gap Trends Dashboard to discover how these gaps in attendance between groups of students have evolved over recent school years. This helps you plan for improvement in school practices. The separate data for the statewide, school, and district gaps between these student groups' attendance helps you investigate whether policies or practices at certain schools can serve as a model for improving attendance. For example, if you hired new staff to translate school communications to families two years ago, you might open the Achievement Gap Trends Dashboard and set the Target Group filter to "EL" (English Learners). Then you can check whether the gap in attendance rates for students who are English learners vs. those who are English proficient has lessened over the past two years.

Steps for Advanced Analysis Dashboards

1. From the Dashboards dropdown, select Advanced Analysis.
2. Select either:
   •  Achievement Gap - This is the "Achievement Gap - Single Year" dashboard. The attendance-related graph is the "[School Year] Percent Gap in Attendance Rate for Grade __." 
   • Achievement Gap Trends - This dashboard displays several graphs. The attendance-related graph is "Percent Gap in Attendance Rate for Grade __ by Year - [Target Group] to [Comparison Group]."
3. Follow the steps for All Dashboards above to filter and get more information about the data. Note these particularly helpful filters:
   • In the Achievement Gap - Single Year dashboard, the Comparison Race/Ethnicity filter allows you to focus on the performance of one group compared to each other available group in the district.
   • In the Achievement Gap Trends dashboard, changing the Target Group filter automatically changes the Comparison Group. For example, if you change the target group to "EL" (English Learners), the comparison group automatically changes to "English Proficient."

Early Warning Dashboards:

Use the Absenteeism Early Warning dashboard to investigate trends in chronic absenteeism so that you can address those during the school year.

Steps for Early Warning Dashboards

1.  From the Dashboards dropdown, select Early Warning.
2. Under the Early Warning header, select Absenteeism.
3. Follow the steps for All Dashboards above to filter and get more information about the data. Note these particularly helpful filters:
   • Group by: Choose a category in this filter to drill down into the data for certain subgroups, such as disability or economic status. This changes the graphs and their titles from displaying "All Students" to displaying students across the subgroups applicable to the filter you chose.
   • Filters listed below the "Grade Level." Scroll to see these filters. These are particularly useful if you have identified a trend you want to investigate further. For example, you have already set the "Group by" filter to "Economic Status" and are concerned about the students in the "high risk" for economic disadvantage column. You wonder if teachers with smaller classes and more frequent communication to families, such as the special education teacher, have had better success and insights they could share with you and your colleagues. So, you keep the "Group by" filter set to "Economic Status," and you additionally choose the "Disability" filter.

Snapshots Dashboard:

This dashboard is especially useful if you want to check whether your data seems correct before the December Student Snapshot. WISEdash displays data quality indicators at the top so that you can quickly jump to a few data points that may have issues. You can also compare data from the previous snapshot to your data so far in the current year. If you are expecting the data to be quite similar, for example, use this dashboard to check if that is true.

Steps for the Snapshots Dashboard

1. From the Dashboards dropdown, select Snapshots.
2. Under the December Student Snapshot header, select Attendance / Absenteeism.
3. Follow the steps for All Dashboards above to filter and get more information about the data. If you are verifying your data for the December Student Snapshot, note these particularly helpful options:

• Click Data Quality Indicators Help hyperlink to understand what the numbers displaying under Zero Scheduled Value, Sch w/Zero Attendance, and Sch w/100% Attendance mean.
  • Click the number under Zero Scheduled Value, for example, to display and take action on a list of the students scheduled for zero days in the given school year. 
• Compare the green-outlined (current, non-certified data) to the purple-outlined (certified) data from the previous snapshot to find differences in the data that might require you to investigate further.
  • Break down the data to better see differences by subgroups. Click Filter Data and select Group by to select a subgroup on which to narrow your focus.

Student Profile:

Dig into the Attendance-Dropouts section of the student profile when you need to investigate an issue with one student's attendance data or evaluate whether efforts to work with the student and their family have improved their attendance over time.

Steps for the Student Profile

NOTE: Only WISEdash users with specific roles have access to student-level detail.

1. Open the student’s profile. For detailed instructions on this, visit the WISEdash How-To: Locate the Student Profile tutorial webpage.
2. The Student Profile dashboard displays submenus with dropdowns horizontally across the top.
3. Click the Main submenu.
4. Select Attendance-Dropouts from the dropdown.
5. Review the student’s information in the table at the top of this dashboard.

Administrator Dashboard:

Use the "current high risk early warning absenteeism" graph to get an overall understanding of what percent of your students are at low, moderate, or high risk for absenteeism. This can help you determine whether you want to adjust messaging or policies for the entire school community. Use the "certified chronic absenteeism" graph to compare chronic absenteeism across schools in your district, and to compare their chronic absenteeism over the past several years. This can help you evaluate the result of past efforts to improve school attendance.

Steps for the Administrator Dashboard

1. From the Dashboards dropdown, select Administrator.
2. From the Administrator submenu, select Year End.
3. Follow the steps for All Dashboards above to filter and get more information about the data.
4. Scroll down to the graph entitled:
   •  "What is our [school year] attendance rate at each school?" (current data)
   • "What is our certified chronic absenteeism rate at each school?" (certified data from previous snapshots)

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Resources

• Data Privacy: Home page for DPI training around resources around student privacy.
• WISE homepage: A great place to get started if you are new to WISE applications.
• Consider joining our WISE Community, a Microsoft Teams channel where you can read up on current topics and post questions.
• Would you like to ask questions directly to a Partner Support team member? We also host a recurring WISE User Group Webinar! Join us!

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