Before deciding what strategies to use to increase attendance, it can be beneficial to look at the reasons why students don't attend school, and just as important, why they do stay in school, and what they do like about it.

There are well-established risk factors associated with dropping out and skipping school—family background and relationships, past school performance, personal characteristics, and school or neighborhood characteristics (Corville-Smith, Ryan, Adams, & Dalicandro, 1998; Gleason & Dynarski, 2002). For instance, home dynamics such as impoverished living conditions, frequent home relocations, lack of child supervision, and other family issues are often related to non-attendance.

Corville-Smith et al. (1998) found six variables that were statistically significant predictors for distinguishing absentee high school students from regularly attending students:

1. Students' school perceptions: Absentees are less likely to perceive school favorably
2. Perception of parental discipline: Absentees perceive discipline as lax or inconsistent
3. Parents' control: Absentees believe parents are attempting to exert more control over them
4. Students' academic self-concept: Absentees feel inferior academically
5. Perceived family conflict: Absentees experience family conflict
Social competence in class: Absentees are less likely to feel socially competent in class

The authors note that because these variables are interrelated, targeting a single area for treatment is unlikely to be effective. They suggest that success is more probable if community members and organizations, parents, students, and school staff share in the task of identifying solutions to all these concerns.

Although knowing these risk factors can be helpful to schools in general, predicting who will not come to school is more complicated than just taking those factors into account. Gleason and Dynarski (2002) analyzed the effectiveness of these widely used risk factors, and determined that few of them did well in predicting who would drop out. (Not surprisingly, high absenteeism was the factor most associated with the highest dropout rates.) Students who are not in these high-risk categories may not come to school, and so will be left out of intervention programming.

To understand more clearly why students are not coming to school, many researchers and practitioners are interviewing and surveying students to obtain answers. Recently, the Oregon Department of Education interviewed students enrolled in alternative high schools and asked what it was about their school that kept them in, and what they would change about their previous high school to make it a better place. Interestingly, they all responded similarly, regardless of background or environment, with this statement: "Respect me for who I am, require me to do my best, and give me the help I need to achieve it" (Brush & Jones, 2002, p. 3). They need teachers who will be patient and "persevere" with their individual rates of learning, and want teachers to have high expectations for their learning; they will work to achieve goals to meet those expectations, as long as they have the support.

Below are other commonly cited reasons that students have given for not attending school (Clement, Gwynne, & Younkin, 2001;Wagstaff, Combs, & Jarvis, 2000):

• Viewed classes as boring, irrelevant, and a waste of time
• Did not have positive relationships with teachers
• Did not have positive relationships with other students
• Was suspended too often
• Did not feel safe at school
• Could not keep up with schoolwork or was failing (and there were no timely interventions)
• Found classes not challenging enough (worksheets and reading with lectures were the predominant activities), and students can miss class days and still receive credit
• Couldn't work and go to school at the same time

If schools are to successfully address low attendance, clearly they must understand why their students don't come to school, not just rely on national reports, as helpful as they may be. School staff members can conduct student focus groups, have an external organization conduct surveys, and meet with students individually to find out what the issues are, both in the school culture and their personal lives. For instance, when the Linn Benton Lincoln Education Service District (Oregon) staff conduct their attendance audits, they talk directly with groups of students and individuals who are absent quite often, before they make recommendations for what strategies to use (see the Northwest Sampler section for more about this audit process). Staff members are also extensively interviewed to determine how they think policies might be improved.

One promising survey is the School Success Profile (SSP) developed by Bowen and Richman at the School of Social Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While the SSP isn't designed as an attendance survey, it can be a useful tool to understand students' beliefs about themselves, their neighborhoods, schools, families, and peer groups and can inform prevention and intervention planning and programming. The tool is based on best practices research, has been used by many districts and community organizations, and has been endorsed by the National Dropout Prevention Center. (For more information about the SSP, visit the Web site: http://schoolsuccessprofile.org).