Texting with Parents Can Improve School Attendance

Increase attendance rates and combat absenteeism with parent engagement

Schools and districts seeking to increase attendance rates and combat absenteeism know family engagement is a key component to success. Study after study has shown that family engagement is one of the best ways of getting students to show up to school. And one of the best ways to reach families? Text messages.

Did you know that most people (90%) open and read a text within three minutes? Studies show that text messages also receive a higher rate of response than emails: 45% versus 6%.

Given these statistics, it makes sense that texting parents/families is a great way to keep them informed and engaged. It’s a low-cost, accessible, and organized way to significantly decrease absenteeism in K–12 schools and districts. Here are four reasons why two-way texting is a great way for schools to improve attendance:

1. Texting can reduce chronic absence rates as early as elementary school

A second IES study that looked at the implementation of attendance supports in the Providence Public School District (PPSD) found that “during the 2018-19 school year, the use of attendance-related text messaging increased more quickly in schools in which chronic absenteeism decreased between 2017-18 and 2018-19 than in schools in which chronic absenteeism increased, where the use of attendance-related text messaging remained flat.”

The importance of involving families in their child’s education cannot be understated. School districts that use communication tools like SchoolMessenger to engage with families know it helps them build insights around student absence and get to the root of the problems.

With SchoolMessenger’s trusted communication platform now added to PowerSchool, educators are better equipped to increase overall family engagement and support school attendance. SchoolMessenger provides over 63,000 schools in North America with the tools needed to reach every parent or guardian across voice, text, email, and social media messaging and provides automatic translations for over 100 languages.

The variety of texting options allows for deeper parent-school communication. In alignment with the study’s findings, PowerSchool Communication partner schools have also seen a remarkable decrease in absence rates. For example, at Meriden Public Schools in Connecticut, PowerSchool Communication has helped provide a 22% decrease in absenteeism for English learners. Similarly, NYCDOE PowerSchool Communication schools have seen a 7% reduction in chronic absenteeism compared to all NYCDOE schools.

2. Texting is a reliable way for schools to reach families

Texting is an effective way of ensuring student presence in school buildings and it is both quick and reliable. In the 2020 IES study, nearly 100% of the messages sent were correctly delivered to parents across the year. PowerSchool Communication has shown similar results, with a near 100% delivery rate. Of course, delivery of messages is only one part of any outreach and communications plan.

To ensure recipients can read the messages they are sent, SchoolMessenger automatically translates messages into more than 100 family-preferred languages and back again when they reply. With two-way translated texts, families and schools can truly engage with each other.

According to the 2021 IES study, schools, especially secondary, were more likely to use text messaging with multilingual learner students because families could receive them in their preferred language. At the elementary level, evidence showed that a communication tool’s translation feature was critical for communicating with non-English speaking parents and guardians.

In PPSD, nearly a third of texts schools sent regarding attendance were translated. Spanish translations accounted for 29% of overall messages, but texts were also translated into Arabic, Haitian Creole, Kiswahili, and more.

3. Texting can be done at low costs for schools

The cost of attendance interventions is always a concern for schools and families alike. The IES study found that texting is a relatively affordable method ($6.90 to $8.53 per student/year) to improve attendance.

4. Texting can help districts and families work toward the goal of student success

Because texting is a preferred form of communication for many, whether it’s with family, friends, work colleagues, or even the dentist, it makes sense that texting with families about their students is effective. The IES study found that texting reached most parents most of the time and that most parents “accepted text messaging as a way to inform them about their child’s attendance.” Unsubscribe rates were low (around 12%).

Text messaging encourages families and schools work together to help achieve student success. Both families and schools want to see students succeed, and one step to reaching this goal is decreasing absenteeism. Texting is an effective, organized, low-cost way to ensure reliable and in-depth communication between schools and families. If family engagement is a key to student success, texting is a tool that can lead the way toward reaching that shared goal.