Attendance Specialist

KIPP DC • Washington, DC

2d • $71,305 - $77,504 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Attendance Specialist role is an integral part of the Operations team, ensuring that students attend school every day so they can learn and succeed. The starting salary range for this role is $71,305-$77,504. This is a full-time, occasionally flexible role based at KIPP DC school campuses with an anticipated start date of September 2026.

In this role, you will partner with school-based attendance leads to ensure excellent student attendance and reduce chronic absenteeism. The Attendance Specialist will coach school-based attendance leads on implementing their attendance plans, providing ongoing feedback to improve impact and effectiveness. This role works directly with students and families, helps plan and organize school-wide incentive programs, and identifies trends in attendance patterns to inform network-level decisions on incentive design and barrier reduction.

This is an exempt position, and it will report to the Director of Operations on the School Support and Service team. As a headquarters team that is focused on being responsive to our schools and meeting the needs of our students and families, we approach our work in a way that reflects these priorities. Schools operate in person and our students and families rely on us for in-person support, and this position will regularly provide on-site support to school teams, frequently partner with other headquarters teams, or regularly work in multiple locations. Because of the nature of the work, this role allows for occasional flexibility and will be required to be onsite 4 days per week.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree
• At least four years of related work experience
• Previous exposure to or experience in the education sector
• Experience providing training, facilitation and/or coaching for adults.
• Specific experience working directing with youth.
• Ability to create data management systems and data reporting systems
• Technological skills - creation of spreadsheets, powerpoints, knowledge of Excel, Google Docs including Google Sheets, ability to create and analyze surveys
• Strong communication skills.
• Strong cultural competency skills, including the ability to communicate and work effectively and cultivate relationships with a diverse set of stakeholders
• A belief that every child can succeed and that their family plays an integral part in that success.
• Commitment to advancing KIPP DC’s anti-racist ambition through their work with staff, students, alumni, and families

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree
• Previous exposure to or experience with case management, counseling or social work services is a plus.
• Ability to travel across multiple schools and campuses and conduct home visits
• Coordinate distribution/organization of incentive materials, etc.

Responsibilities

• Improve in-seat attendance and reduce chronic absenteeism by working with families, students, and staff
• Provide daily outreach to students in need of attendance support or challenges.
• Convene frequent family meetings to address attendance issues as needed
• Create individual student support plans to get students to school as needed
• Meet with individual students to build and monitor attendance plans
• Monitor that interventions have been implemented, following up and adjusting course as needed
• Participate in any school-based activities that relate to attendance, including parent-teacher conferences, back-to-school nights, welcome nights, and family events
• Develop an ongoing incentive plan for each school, order incentives, and schedule incentive events
• Create functional and effective school systems in tandem with school personnel
• Coach office managers and other attendance team members on implementing attendance protocols, including daily attendance-taking, tracking tardiness, following up with families, and coordinating with school staff
• Create and maintain a system for checking and updating contact numbers
• Use email and DeansList attendance reports to share ongoing attendance information with families
• Monitor each school’s attendance portal and work with office managers to update information if necessary
• Conduct monthly audits of attendance-related school systems, including tardy tracking, daily review of absences, classroom-level attendance-taking, and portal usage
• Follow up with school personnel about school-based interventions in a timely manner
• Direct case management of students who are chronically absent or have reached Tier 2/Tier 3 intervention
• Monitor data weekly and create and maintain an ongoing list of students with over 20 absences
• Document all meetings in the list of students
• Ensure all required reporting and interventions are completed, including 5 UA, 9 UA, and CFSA/OAG reports
• Hold meetings with families, in person or virtually, as soon as a student reaches 20 absences, to build an attendance plan
• Store all plans centrally for easy reference with students and families
• Hold meetings with any students in grades 3 -12 with 20 absences - include them in the creation of an attendance plan, identify specific incentives that would encourage them to come to school
• Hold additional meetings with families and students at every 5-absence threshold beyond 20 (25, 30, 35, etc.)
• Coordinate with school personnel to file additional CFSA/OAG reports at agreed-upon thresholds (generally 20 absences for CFSA, 30 for OAG)
• Coach school-based attendance leads and drive alignment across attendance teams throughout the organization
• Coach school-based attendance leads on implementing their attendance plans and running effective attendance meetings, preparing relevant data as needed
• Confirm weekly attendance team meetings are scheduled and consistently held and documented at each school
• Follow up on action items coming out of weekly attendance meetings
• Attend and participate in KIPP DC attendance work meetings, presenting data and weighing in on protocols, data collection, and appropriate interventions
• Attend school-based meetings at the request of the school leader
• Attend MHP meetings at the request of the Mental Health Leadership Team Page
• Meet at least weekly with the attendance team designee to review attendance data
• Send a weekly follow-up email to the school attendance team outlining next steps

Benefits

• medical, dental, and vision insurances
• various voluntary benefits
• employer paid benefits such as short term disability, long term disability, life insurance, and a membership to One Medical.
• 403(b) retirement account with a 3% employer contribution and a 3% match with vesting after three years.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level