Beginning the 35th school day, as recommended by
Chang and Romero (2008), the FNP and the social worker
made unscheduled visits to excessively absent students’
homes. The FNP then began active surveillance and intervention
to reduce absenteeism. Each day the FNP received
an absence report electronically from the two elementary
schools’ data managers to see which students met the criteria
for chronic or excessive absences related to illness. Because
ChildPlus, the Head Start database, does not have the capacity
to generate such a list, the FNP, in collaboration with
Head Start staff, attempted to check each classroom’s attendance
roster daily.