For the upcoming school year, we’re excited to introduce a powerful new set of TalkingPoints features designed to help schools and districts elevate their family engagement strategies and improve outcomes for all students. Many of these enhancements are directly inspired by insights and challenges shared by our school and district partners.
Attendance Improvement Tools to Address Chronic Absenteeism
One of the most pressing challenges schools continue to face is chronic absenteeism, with nearly 1 in 3 students missing significant instructional time.* Schools need more than just attendance data—they need tools that provide insight into why students are missing school and the ability to act on that information. Collaborating with families and learning from their experiences helps address the root causes of absenteeism, leading to meaningful improvements.
That’s where Attendance Improvement Plus comes in. Built on the belief that effective family engagement is key to addressing attendance issues, this new add-on package to TalkingPoints Foundations equips educators with real-time insights, proactive outreach tools, and two-way communication features. Together, these tools help foster stronger family-school partnerships to help keep students in class and on track
With Attendance Improvement Plus and a set of new tools added to TalkingPoints Foundations, schools and districts can make family engagement a core strategy for advancing student success.
See What’s New for 2025-26
Introducing Attendance Improvement Plus
Turn Real-Time Attendance Insights into Meaningful Action
Chronic absenteeism continues to hinder student success nationwide. Traditional approaches —like one-way communication or passive tracking—are no longer sufficient. Attendance Improvement Plus offers a smarter, more connected solution, helping schools build meaningful family-school partnerships and work collaboratively with families to uncover and address the root causes of attendance challenges.
With proactive, consistent communication—translated into 150+ home languages—schools can partner with every family, regardless of barriers or circumstances.
A Quick Overview of Attendance Improvement Plus
Attendance Improvement Plus includes:
- Real-Time Attendance Dashboard – Instantly view attendance data, trends, and at-risk groups in one centralized hub. Customize views to highlight key insights, enabling timely, targeted interventions—as well as celebrating positive attendance habits.
- Smarter, Targeted Messaging – Go beyond generic alerts. From the dashboard, attendance staff can send personalized messages and families can easily respond in their home language via text or the app, helping to get to the reason for the absence and begin to partner with families to provide support.
- Automated Daily Absence Messages – Customize and schedule messages based on absence type —such as unexcused absences, or those with no reported reason—helping to understand challenges and get students back on track faster.
- Attendance Message Series – Engage families proactively with research-backed messages that highlight the importance of regular attendance.
- Dedicated Attendance Inbox – Centralize all attendance-related messages in one inbox, separate from general school communications. Staff can easily prioritize conversations, and families can respond in their home language via text or the app, reaching all families regardless of barriers and circumstances.
TalkingPoints in Tulsa Public Schools
See how TalkingPoints decreased absenteeism rates by 25%. Read the report.
Attendance Improvement Plus is now available as an add-on to TalkingPoints Foundations for the 2025–26 school year, with special introductory pricing. It uses the TalkingPoints Connector for seamless data integration with the student information system (SIS).
Learn more about Attendance Improvement Plus.
Enhance Family Engagement, Strengthen Relationships
We’ve also enhanced TalkingPoints Foundations with new tools designed to strengthen connections between educators and families:
- Quick Kudos – Instantly celebrate student achievements with just a few clicks! positivity.
- Positive Message Tracking – Teachers can easily track positive engagement, ensuring every student receives recognition.
- Family Check-Ins – Use pre-built messages that enable teachers to easily stay connected with families at key moments during the year—from the first day of school to exam time.
Why it Matters
Research shows that a 4:1 ratio of positive to constructive messages builds trust, strengthening family-teacher partnerships, making it easier to partner with families when challenges arise.
Easily Organize Class Events, Streamline School Communications
- Class Event Management – Simplify family night and parent-teacher conferences. Families can sign up for time slots that sync directly with the school calendar.
- Personalized Messaging for Staff – Counselors, nurses, and school leaders can easily switch between personal and school inboxes depending on the nature of the message, helping to foster trust and strengthen family relationships.
- More Efficient Staff and School Announcements – Administrators can include staff as a recipient of announcements along with students or families—ensuring the right people get the right information.
Extend Classroom Learning at Home
We’re excited to introduce Academic Improvement Plus, a free add-on for the 2025–26 school year that helps families stay connected to what’s happening in the classroom and support classroom learning at home.
- Home Learning Activities – Teachers can quickly share research-based activities that families can do at home to reinforce what’s happening in the classroom.
- No Teacher Prep Required – Simply select a grade level and topic, and TalkingPoints will create an easy-to-use home activity.
Learn more about all of the new features for 2025-26
Explore What’s New and See It In Action
If you’d like a personalized demo and get all of your questions answered, you can request one here.
If you’re an existing partner contact your Partner Success Manager, or send us a note at partners@talkingpts.org.
References:
Chronic Absenteeism – Supporting student attendance and combatting chronic absenteeism in our nation’s schools, US Dept of Education
