Student Focused Solutions: Cultivating a culture of attendance at Paloma ESD

As the calendar turned from 2019 to 2020 in Paloma Elementary School District, there were many reasons for celebration. The district, which is about an hour and fifteen minutes southwest of Phoenix, had just opened a brand new school building (Kiser Elementary), and key attendance metrics such as chronic absenteeism were low, sitting at about 8%. What happened next is a story that unfurled across the country: the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted regular learning, plunged education into a chaotic scramble, and left school leaders like Paloma ESD Superintendent, Kristin Turner, playing a game of catch-up that continues to this day.

The GRAD Partnership was formed in the wake of the pandemic, when education leaders across the country came together to address the alarming spike in chronic absenteeism, plummeting course completion and graduation rates, and an overall malaise among students that left them feeling disconnected from school. The GRAD Partnership works to advance student success systems, which are a way of organizing a school community to better support the academic progress, college and career transitions, and well-being of all students. Rural Schools Collaborative is a founding member of the GRAD Partnership, and works with over 50 schools in rural communities to grow and develop student success systems alongside regional hub partners, who serve as trusted local intermediaries.

In Arizona, RSC’s Arizona Regional Hub partners at the Arizona Rural Schools Association made for a natural fit as an intermediary, bringing decades of experience supporting rural schools and having a membership of over 200 rural districts. At ARSA, the work to develop student success systems at Paloma and nine other school districts is co-led by Jaime Festa-Daigle, ARSA President and the Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning at Flagstaff Unified School District, who also serves as RSC Arizona Hub lead. Alongside Jaime, Kristin Turner, who in addition to her duties as Paloma Superintendent/Principal and ARSA Board Member, supports schools across Arizona in the adoption and strengthening of student success systems.

“We joined the GRAD Partnership because we wanted to be more intentional about how we support our students. Attendance isn’t just a number—it’s the foundation for everything else, and we knew we needed the right tools and support to move that work forward.”

For Kristin and her student success team at Paloma, the challenges are significant: her student body is 97% free-and-reduced lunch, almost 60% English language learners, and has migrant population of nearly 50%, which for some learners means that Paloma is the first school they have attended, even for students as old as 6th grade. As a result, Kristin’s goals through participation in the GRAD Partnership are two-fold: get students in school (chronic absenteeism has leveled off at 22% the last two years) and deliver adaptable, intentional instruction to boost reading, ELA, and mathematics proficiency. Kristin and her team have a short-term goal of partnering with both students and families to achieve 15% chronic absenteeism.

Meeting these ambitious goals means working with families new to the community on the importance of daily attendance, and getting creative around the unique population in and around Gila Bend, AZ. In the largely agricultural community, many farms shut down during winter, leaving families without work for a time, where they often return temporarily to visit family in Mexico. “With our student success team, we [identified that] when we come back from winter break, there's too many kids that are still gone. So, we decided the day that we would come back from winter break, we would have a ‘Welcome Back’ celebration.” Planned by the teachers, the day had a festival-like atmosphere, with students in each grade level competing in challenges–think carrying cotton candy on a spatula– before coming together as a whole school for wider competitions.

The student success team at Paloma also turned to the students for help.“We started a student council this year with the goal of improving attendance,” Kristin explains. “We asked students what they thought we could do, and they suggested offering monthly prizes for perfect attendance. We used funds from our GRAD Partnership participation and gave them a budget of about $1 per prize. The student council chose the items, and they often help deliver the prizes as well.” Ariel, a fourth grader on the student council, adds “For the younger students, we chose the plushies because they like little toys.”

The year-one results have been promising. With a few months remaining in the 2025–26 school year, chronic absenteeism sits at about 15%. But Kristin notes that broad metrics don’t tell the full story. “Chronic absenteeism has a strict cutoff—you’re either considered truant or you’re not,” she explains. “But we’re seeing real progress. Some students who had 38 absences last year are now down to 22. They’re still classified as truant, but that’s meaningful improvement. They’re moving in the right direction.” Pouring through the data on a monthly basis has helped Kristin see the nuance in her students' progression.

First, she was able to notice how frequently siblings were out of school together, pointing not to individual apathy for school, but a wider trend that has led her to have more direct conversations with parents about the importance of attendance. And at a small, rural school with about 100 students, one family can be as much as 5% of your student body. Moreover, she was able to see just how many positive trendlines there were for students, and because of the student success team’s personal knowledge of each student, they can work more effectively to understand why someone might not be attending.

Kristin and her team have also shared that data back with the students. They now will send a letter home with students after the month concludes, offering encouragement. Kristin says the messages sound like: “You only missed one day this month—that’s great! You’re so close. Let’s aim for perfect attendance next month.” Between the affirmation from adults, and prizes purchased and delivered by their peers, more and more students at Paloma are taking ownership of their attendance and coming to school each day.

As the 2025-26 school year winds down, Kristin and her team already have their eyes set on growth they are looking forward to next year. They hope to see strong improvements in ELA, reading, and math at the end of the semester, and their chronic absenteeism to continue trending downwards. As the challenges of an increasingly growing English language learner student body continue, Kristin takes heart from her dedicated school staff and the earnest engagement shown by her students. “Any progress is real progress during these times,” she reflects.

Rural Schools Collaborative would like to thank Kristin Turner and Jaime Festa-Daigle of the Arizona Rural Schools Association for their continued partnership with RSC and their stewardship as intermediaries of the GRAD Partnership.