Chronic Absenteeism Myths: How Nuview Union Transformed Attendance

Chronic absenteeism remains one of the most urgent challenges facing schools today.
K-12 leaders who focus on attendance improvement understand that this challenge is a complex one, but solutions aren’t always obvious–or easy.

Nuview Union School District in California knows this well. At our recent webinar, ParentSquare Attendance Plus Overview: Empowering Student Presence, Dr. Anny Iacono, the district’s Director of Student Services and Special Education, shared some hard-won lessons from her work to help chronically absent students in her district.

The conversation between Dr. Iacono and Alex Meis, chronic absenteeism expert and ParentSquare’s VP of Attendance Strategy, helped challenge commonly held myths around attendance issues. Read on for more about those myths and the truths that prove them wrong.

Myth #1: Chronically absent students just don’t care.

When asked what myth about absenteeism she wishes she could erase for good, Dr. Iacono doesn’t hesitate: the belief that kids simply don’t want to come to school.

“In most cases,” she explains, “that’s just not true.”

More often, students are facing challenges that aren’t visible on an attendance report, such as mental health struggles, unavoidable medical appointments, transportation issues, or limited access to community resources. These barriers can quietly stack up, making it harder and harder for a student to show up.

The shift, Dr. Iacono says, starts with moving from compliance to compassion. When schools lead with empathy rather than assumptions, they can uncover what’s really going on, partner more closely with families, and work together to close the gaps that keep students out of the classroom.

Myth #2: If families understood the importance of attendance, students would always be in school.

It’s true that some parents may not fully understand how critical consistent attendance is. But for many others, the issue isn’t awareness — it’s reality. Life simply makes regular attendance harder than it should be.

To see evidence of this, consider the challenges that some Nuview Union parents must face. Dr. Iacono noted that Nuview Union is a rural district, and access to basic services can be limited. When families need medical care, they often have to travel out of town. What might be a simple appointment elsewhere can mean a full day of missed school.

In these situations, parents aren’t disengaged. They’re navigating constraints. Most are doing the very best they can with the resources available to them.

That’s why empathy matters. When schools approach attendance conversations with understanding instead of judgment, they’re far more likely to connect with families and find solutions that actually work.

Myth #3: Official notices sent home are the best way to inform parents about absence issues.

Nuview Union used to rely on traditional mail-based attendance notices to communicate about student attendance issues. Unfortunately, they discovered that such notices had many deficiencies.

Dr. Iacono identified several ways in which mailings failed her district:

• Post office failures: Critically, mailings sometimes failed to reach parents in remote parts of her district.
• Delivery delays: The mailings that did make it home to parents often arrived a week or two after the district began sending the message.
• Impersonal language: Since messages were sent by a third-party company rather than by school employees familiar with a student, they weren’t personalized.

These problems made it clear that traditional attendance notification solutions might not be able to deliver the results that districts are hoping for.

Watch the on-demand webinar for more myth-busting truths

This post only scratches the surface of the powerful strategies Dr. Iacono and Alex shared.

In the full webinar, you’ll learn:

• The #1 Action Step: Dr. Iacono’s immediate, practical advice for district leaders who want to start improving attendance today.
• The Real Barriers Behind Absences: How common challenges—from communication gaps to limited access to services—impact families, and what schools can do about them.
• Creative Interventions That Work: Fresh ideas for engaging students and parents, plus practical tips for more effective attendance messaging.
• How to Adapt and Improve: How Nuview Union refined its outreach and feedback loops based on what families actually needed.

But insight alone isn’t enough. 

Turning awareness into impact requires actionable data, timely outreach, and consistent family engagement. That’s where ParentSquare Attendance Plus comes in.

In the webinar, you’ll see how Nuview Union transformed its approach to attendance improvement using actionable dashboards, streamlined outreach tools, and time-saving workflows that help staff identify issues early and intervene before they escalate.

Watch the on-demand webinar to see how your district can take the same proactive approach.