Tribal Attendance Promising Practices (TAPP)

The Origins of the TAPP Grant 

After the release of The Condition of Education for Members of Oregon's Indian Tribes in January 2013, a study from the Chalkboard Project, the Government to Government Education Cluster (comprised of representatives from each of the& nine federally recognized Tribes in Oregon) created a Policy Option Package (POP) to solicit state funding to reduce chronic absenteeism of American Indian/Alaska Native students. The study revealed if you were an American Indian/Alaska Native student nearly one-third (33%) in all grades were chronically absent (missing 10% or more of school days). While all other students are at less than one-fifth (19%) chronically absent.

 

The Oregon legislature set aside funds for the 2025-2027 to recieve $200,000 (TAPP expansion sites will receive $400,000) to operate TAPP projects focused on addressing the root causes of chronic absenteeism in ten Oregon school districts. TAPP will enable participating districts to fund a full-time TAPP Family Advocate position. This person has deep local connections and helps implement a balanced approach to improve attendance co-created by the school district and a tribal partner. 

The intent of the collaboration is to strengthen the links between Oregon Tribes and the schools that serve any student identifying as American Indian/ Alaska Native (AI/AN), even if the student is not a member of a federally recognized tribe. TAPP differs from Title VI programs in that fundamental way. However, because this is a school-wide initiative, it will positively impact the attendance of every student attending TAPP schools.

TAPP Sites

• • Coos Bay School District
  • Klamath County School District
  • Lincoln County School District
• • Salem-Keizer School District
  • Jefferson County School District
  • Pendleton School District
  • North Bend School District
• • Douglas County School District 4(NEW for SY 25-26)
    
  • Willamina School District
  • Harney County School District
    
    

TAPP Program Promising and Best Practices

Since the TAPP Pilot year, our district sites have been deeply committed to the work of the Tribal Attendance Promising Practices grant program. Educators look to our TAPP districts to learn from them just what it takes to increase the attendance of our American Indian/Alaska Native students. While some of the best practices linked below can be readily implemented at any school site, our most “promising practices" are the ones which have required educators and school and district leaders to evaluate systems, structures, policies, and beliefs present in themselves and throughout their complex K-12 ecosystems to determine to what extent they truly serve our AI/AN+ students and center their unique cultural and linguistic needs in their district and school improvement efforts.  

Courageously naming, addressing, and working to heal the historical trauma of settler colonialism – the impacts of land theft, reservations, broken treaties, the attempted genocide of culture and languages with the boarding school era, and the devastating impacts of Indian termination policies on the lineages of entire families still today – is really the work of TAPP. The document below uplifts a fraction of these promising practices happening across our various TAPP sites. Our deep gratitude and appreciation goes out to them as they engage in this work each and every day at 28 school sites in ten school districts across the state of Oregon. 

Attendance Works - Foundational Supports interview Questions 

The Tribal Attendance Promising Practices program is built off of the research-based methods from Attendance Works. In our TAPP monthly meetings this year, we have been learning more about the Three Tiers of Intervention, especially about the importance of “Foundational Supports”. For any TAPP Family Advocate or any support staff member who leads regular attendance efforts who would like to learn more about the foundational supports in place at their school, these interview questions can help guide them.

Trainings for TAPP Districts 

Data Transparency

Please use the links below to review data submitted to ODE by school Districts

English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science Assessment Reports** This link will also show you results from the Student Educational Equity Development Survey (SEED).

At-A-Glance School District Profiles 

Regular Attenders (formerly "Not Chronically Absent") Report

Graduation and Dropout Rates

Oregon Statewide Report Card: 2022-2023

Discipline, Restraint and Seclusion Collections

Graduation Requirements and College Preparation

Additional Resources 

A common Pedagogy

TAPP Family Advocates have worked to define what it means to create a school-wide culture that is culturally responsive for AI/AN+ students. Not able to find a comprehensive national model to define this pedagogical approach, the TAPP Family Advocates studied the four foundational supports from Attendance Works which must be in place to create positive conditions for any student to learn. 

• Physical and Emotional Health and Safety

• Belonging Connection and Support

• Academic Challenge and Engagement

• Adult and Student Well-Being and Emotional Competence

TAPP Family Advocates have worked to identify what these foundational supports in the four main domains look like in practice at each of their school sites for ALL students. It is important to know that this work went far beyond statements around “beliefs”, but sought to identify CONCRETE systems and structures in place in a school to tend to each category. TAPP Family Advocates then worked to “indigenize” each category. To indigenize means to root out biased systems and structures by becoming aware of, respecting, and incorporating indigenous perspectives and practices into these westernized systems, institutions, and structures. 

For each of the four foundational supports, TAPP Family Advocates worked to identify what additional, but still foundational needs AI/AN+ students have in the four categories. This process is depicted in the graphics below and became our model - our TAPP pedagogy - for what it means to create a school culture that is culturally responsive to AI/AN+ students. We incorporated the medicine wheel as a visual reminder to “indigenize” each category.

Attendance Works Model -

Description: Four section vinn diagram: north circle "Physical and emotional health and Safety", east circle " belonging, Connection, and Support", South Circle " Academic Challenge and Engagement", West Circle " Adult and Student Well-being and Emotional Competence".

 

Attendance Works Model Adapted by the TAPP Family Advocates -

Description:Four section vinn diagram: north circle "Physical and emotional health and Safety", east circle " belonging, Connection, and Support", South Circle " Academic Challenge and Engagement", West Circle " Adult and Student Well-being and Emotional Competence". Around the four section vinn diagram "Foundational Supports to Creat a School Wide Culture that is Culturally Responsive to AI/AN+ Students"

Key Resources to Support TAPP Work

Contact the Office of Indian Education

ODE.IndianEd@ode.oregon.gov