Cumberland Schools Approves $200,000 System to Curb Chronic Absenteeism

With roughly one in three students chronically absent during the 2024–25 school year, Cumberland County Schools is turning to a $200,000 automated attendance system to help get students into classrooms and give school social workers more time with families.

The Board of Education approved the two-year purchase of SchoolStatus Attend on October 12. The system will track attendance, automate notices to families, and help staff identify students who need support.  District officials said the system could reduce the time school social workers spend preparing and mailing attendance letters by 75%, giving them more time for home visits, meetings with families, and helping students overcome barriers to attending school.

Chronic absenteeism means missing at least 10% of school days, including excused and unexcused absences and suspensions. Through January 30 of the 2025–26 school year, the district’s absenteeism rate was 27.4%. The district’s full-year rate was 33.76% in 2024–25, compared with 33.48% in 2023–24 and 34.53% in 2022–23.

Natasha Scott, the district’s executive director of student services, told board members that SchoolStatus reports average reductions in chronic absenteeism of 18% in the first year and 36% in the second among districts where it is deployed.

An 18% reduction from the district’s 2024–25 rate would equal a drop of about six percentage points in its overall rate, bringing it to roughly 27.7%. A 36% reduction by the second year would lower the same baseline by about 12.2 percentage points, to roughly 21.6%. 

Scott cautioned that the district would have less than a full school year using the system in its first year.

“I think that we should be a little bit liberal in the first year because we won’t have the benefit of having a whole full year,” she said.

Bringing Social Workers ‘Out of the Dark Ages’

“What we’re really asking you is to bring our school social workers out of the dark ages,” Scott told board members during an October 6 committee presentation.

For Scott, the proposal brought back memories of monthly attendance reports spread out in front of her, a highlighter in hand, as she worked out which families needed a letter home.

“It used to take me three days at the beginning of each month to run those reports and sit down and come up with all of my letters,” she said, recalling her work at Mac Williams Middle School.

The letters were only the beginning. Six days of absences meant a home visit. At 10, she scheduled a conference with the principal. Beyond that, her work could include more visits, community referrals, and discussions about court involvement.

“What’s going on, Mama? How can I help you?” Scott recalled asking during visits.

Back at school, she worked on attendance contracts, helped students connect with teachers about missed assignments, and offered small incentives to get them through the door.

“I give you a bag of chips if you come to school, yes, I’ll come eat lunch with you,” she said, describing the kinds of encouragement she offered.

Using SchoolStatus, Scott said, would reduce the paperwork involved in tracking absences and preparing notices, leaving “more time on the positive engagement piece.”

The district received proposals from six vendors and invited the top three to demonstrate their programs before selecting SchoolStatus.

Its dashboard will connect with Infinite Campus, the district’s student information system, allowing staff to review attendance by student, class, school, and district, as well as document meetings and interventions.

You’ve Got Mail

The new system will handle a familiar piece of school correspondence: the letter home. For Scott, one selling point was that the company would do more than flag absences or generate a notice on a screen.

“They print and compile the letters. They mail the letters,” she said.

The order form specifies a mix of paper and digital correspondence under the district’s Attend Hybrid subscription.

The agreement also includes interventions for both excused and unexcused absences. Text and email communication are available when the district has the required parent or guardian consent. Scott said electronic messages would allow parents to respond directly with an explanation for an absence. District staff will establish when different notices should go out.

The order form estimates 45,000 mailings, excluding letters from school administrators. 

Some messages will carry good news. Students whose attendance improves can receive positive notifications, giving families encouragement alongside warnings about missed school.

“We have to do all of those things and not just count the days that they’re out and talk about the negative consequences of what will happen if you don’t send your kids to school,” Scott said.

Scott said other districts report substantial reductions in the time social workers spend mailing attendance letters, identifying Johnston and Harnett counties as districts using the product.

“Anywhere from 50 to 75% is what other districts report,” she said.“They all seem to love it and they report that they received very positive results from it,” she said.

‘Nothing Ever Replaces Human Touch’

The approach follows a home-visit pilot the district launched last school year with Concentric Educational Solutions, which hired local staff to reach families of students with repeated absences. The company completed 226 home visits across five schools as of March 19.

Melody Chalmers McClain, associate superintendent of student support services, said the district learned from that effort families wanted to hear from people they already knew through their schools.

“Our takeaway from that project with them was that we wanted our own social workers to do that because that was kind of what we heard from parents,” McClain said. “The new system is intended to give those employees more time to visit neighborhoods and work directly with families.” 

Superintendent Eric Bracy questioned whether the hands-on work Scott described from earlier in her career—school employees knocking on doors and calling families—had been more effective at keeping students in school.

Scott said that when she worked in Guilford and Forsyth counties, data managers handled the attendance letters and provided a list of students who needed her attention.

“They paid me to be a social worker and so I had time to do a lot of small groups, attendance contracts with students,” she said.

Coming to Cumberland County meant serving one school instead of several, which she welcomed, but also taking on the work of preparing the letters herself. She said automating that work could help employees struggling with heavy workloads.

“Nothing ever replaces that human touch,” Scott said. “But this certainly would drastically decrease what our social workers are trying to do on a daily basis just to make it happen.”

High Schools Draw Concern

The SchoolStatus contract covers all 84 operating schools in the district, though its school list also includes four closed campuses. Scott said the company estimates it takes about four weeks to get the system running, including connecting student data, training staff, and establishing when attendance notices will go out. 

High school attendance emerged as a particular concern during the discussion. Bracy asked whether high school students were more chronically absent than students in other grades, and Scott confirmed they were.

State 2024–25 School Report Card data show substantial attendance challenges among the 17 high schools named in the district’s SchoolStatus contract. The six highlighted below had chronic absenteeism rates above the district’s 33.76% rate that school year.

Ramsey Street Alternative High had the highest chronic absenteeism rate among the 17 high schools in 2024–25, at 75.75%, representing 203 students. The school has since relocated and reopened as Pauline Jones High School for the 2026–27 school year.

At Douglas Byrd High, 64.52% of students were chronically absent, nearly twice the district average.

Board member Jackie Warner questioned whether students who show up for one class could miss later periods without their attendance problems being fully captured.

“Sometimes when you see their accumulated number of absences, it doesn’t match,” Warner said. “So is there a way that they can do it by period?”

“We take period attendance,” McClain said.

Scott said staff need to consider both daily attendance and individual class attendance, particularly for younger high school students covered by compulsory attendance requirements. She also described the difficulty of keeping older students engaged once they can legally leave school.

Warner also questioned whether attendance problems among choice program students whose families provide transportation were being addressed early enough. She asked whether students struggling to get to school could return to their assigned schools, where transportation is available.

“A lot of those students aren’t present as much as they should be,” Warner said.

McClain said principals can alert student assignment staff, who can work with families and consider whether returning to a student’s assigned school is necessary when transportation cannot be provided.

Scott also asked about funding summer home visits so social workers could continue reconnecting students with school. Bracy said the district could review its budget.

“People like me talk about improving the quality of instruction and if you’re not there, it really doesn’t matter,” Bracy said during the discussion.

“We can look at the budget and see where we are, but we want to see some results,” he said.