Don't Wait Until Attendance Drops or Enrollment Slots Sit Empty. Learn How to Identify Concerns Earlier and Take Action.
Every missed day matters. For children, consistent attendance supports learning, development, relationships, and access to important services. For Head Start and Early Head Start agencies, attendance and enrollment also play a critical role in program performance, compliance, and the effective use of funded enrollment opportunities.
But maintaining strong attendance and full enrollment isn't always easy.
A child begins missing Mondays. Another family experiences transportation challenges. A classroom's attendance rate gradually declines. A child withdraws, leaving a vacant slot. An eligible family remains on the waitlist while enrollment paperwork is delayed.
Individually, these situations may seem manageable. But without clear workflows, consistent follow-up, and timely reporting, small concerns can become larger problems.
Are your teams identifying attendance and enrollment concerns early enough to make a difference?
Connect Attendance, Enrollment, and Family Engagement
Join the GoEngage team for an interactive, hands-on virtual workshop designed to help Head Start and Early Head Start agencies strengthen the processes that support consistent attendance, timely enrollment, and meaningful family engagement.
This workshop brings together two essential areas of program operations—attendance and enrollment—to help agencies develop a more coordinated, proactive approach.
Rather than treating attendance tracking, family outreach, waitlist management, and vacancy filling as separate responsibilities, participants will explore how these activities connect and how GoEngage can support a more consistent process from beginning to end.
Through practical exercises and realistic Head Start scenarios, you'll learn how to identify emerging concerns, document follow-up, improve coordination between departments, and use program data to guide action.
What You'll Learn and Build
1. Understand the Head Start Attendance and Enrollment Requirements - Explore the Head Start Program Performance Standards related to attendance, absenteeism, funded enrollment, vacancy management, and waitlist selection.
Learn how the 85% monthly average daily attendance threshold, individual attendance patterns, the 10% chronic absence benchmark, and enrollment vacancy timelines affect your agency's daily operations.
Identify opportunities to strengthen existing practices and establish clear expectations across departments.
2. Strengthen Your Vacancy-to-Enrollment Process - Every vacant enrollment slot represents an opportunity to serve another eligible child and family.
Learn how to create a consistent workflow for identifying vacancies, reviewing eligible children on the waitlist, contacting families, completing enrollment requirements, and tracking progress toward filling available slots.
Participants will map a vacancy-to-enrollment process with clear responsibilities, timelines, and follow-up checkpoints to help prevent unnecessary delays.
3. Improve Waitlist Management and Enrollment Readiness - A well-managed waitlist can make a significant difference in how quickly your agency fills available enrollment opportunities.
Explore how to maintain accurate, up-to-date applications, apply your agency's approved selection criteria, identify eligible families, and recognize applications that need additional attention.
Learn how to establish a routine for reviewing your waitlist and preparing for upcoming vacancies.
4. Identify Attendance Concerns Before They Become Chronic - Waiting until a child has already missed 10% of program days can mean missing opportunities for earlier intervention.
Learn how to use GoEngage attendance information to identify children with emerging patterns of absence, including repeated absences on certain days, consecutive missed days, and attendance changes following breaks or transitions.
Explore ways to document family outreach, identify barriers, coordinate support services, and evaluate whether intervention strategies are making a difference.
5. Build a Consistent Attendance Follow-Up Process - Effective attendance management requires more than recording whether a child is present or absent.
Participants will develop a practical daily and weekly attendance follow-up process that defines when families should be contacted, who is responsible, how outreach is documented, and when additional support or escalation may be needed.
Explore how GoEngage attendance alerts, family communication, and documentation capabilities can support timely outreach and consistent follow-up.
6. Know What to Do When Attendance Falls Below 85% - When monthly average daily attendance falls below 85%, identifying the underlying causes is essential.
Learn how to examine attendance trends across centers and classrooms, review absence reasons, identify recurring challenges, and determine whether broader issues—such as transportation, illness, scheduling, or family circumstances—may be contributing.
Participants will develop a structured approach to analyzing attendance concerns and connecting findings to practical improvement strategies.
7. Turn Reports Into Action - Reports are most valuable when they help staff recognize concerns and take action.
Explore how to use GoEngage reports to identify enrollment vacancies, pending applications, attendance concerns, and other situations requiring follow-up.
Develop a consistent monthly data-review process that brings ERSEA, family services, center management, and data staff together to evaluate trends, assign responsibilities, and monitor progress.
Leave With Practical Tools You Can Put to Work
This isn't just another webinar about attendance and enrollment requirements. It's a hands-on working session designed to help your team strengthen the processes they use every day.
By the end of the workshop, participants will have developed or refined:
A vacancy-to-enrollment workflow with clear timelines and responsibilities
A waitlist review and management process
Enrollment and attendance exception-report priorities
A consistent daily and weekly attendance follow-up workflow
An approach for identifying and supporting children at risk of chronic absence
An under-85% attendance analysis and monthly data-review process
A 60-day action plan for implementing improvements
The goal is simple: identify concerns earlier, respond more consistently, and create better opportunities for children and families to succeed.
Recommended Setup for Hands-On Participation
For the best experience, we recommend using two screens or devices—one to watch the live Zoom workshop and another to work directly in GoEngage.
Don't have two monitors? No problem! Join Zoom from a tablet or second device while keeping your computer available for hands-on exercises.
Bring your attendance and enrollment challenges. Leave with practical workflows, stronger reporting practices, and a plan for taking action.
