The U.S. Department of Education reports 26% of American students (14.7 million children) are chronically absent, missing 10% or more of school days. This isn't just an academic issue—it's a safety, legal, and financial crisis for schools.
Why this matters
Student safety and legal compliance:
State laws mandate prompt notification and tiered interventions. In Ohio, the "Alianna Alert" law—enacted after the 2017 murder of 14-year-old Alianna DeFreeze—requires schools to notify parents within two hours if a student is unexpectedly absent. Schools need systems that enable rapid response and compliant intervention tracking.
Financial pressure:
Average Daily Attendance (ADA) directly determines school funding in most states. High absenteeism means less funding, creating a vicious cycle where schools struggling most with attendance have the fewest resources to address it.
The current experience
The existing Student Attendance Profile showed:
Student demographic information and tier classification
Total/excused/unexcused absence counts as simple numbers
Ability to send messages
Chronological action history table
Basic contact information for parents and staff
What was missing:
Information hierarchy—confusing organization led to inaction
School year context—couldn't distinguish time frame of absenced as circumstantial vs. chronic patterns
Visual pattern recognition—users had to mentally calculate trends
Temporal relationships—hard to see "every Monday" or "after holidays" patterns
I redesigned the Student Attendance Profile around a 3-level calendar visualization (yearly → monthly → weekly) that makes attendance patterns immediately recognizable. Integrated messaging and note-taking workflows eliminate the 8-step navigation process that previously slowed interventions.
The Impact
Launched September 2025 - Early metrics demonstrate strong adoption and usability improvements:
97% faster pattern identification: 120 minutes to 30 seconds for identifying absence patterns (from manually reviewing tables and tallying patterns from separate systems to visual scanning one page)
50% fewer steps to complete interventions: Reduced from 8 to 4 steps
82% weekly active usage: Calendar view's contextual information enables more targeted family communication, driving higher engagement vs. 45% for previous list view
Qualitative validation: Administrators at Red Hook CSD and Mansfield ISD report being "thrilled" and "excited" about ease of use and family engagement
Our team had identified data tables as a major source of cognitive overload across Attendance Plus. The Student Attendance Profile was the prime example. District admins reported spending hours per student on interventions because the profile provided only cursory data views.
I partnered with my Product Manager and Customer Success Manager to conduct interviews with attendance clerks and administrators, evaluate the current interface, and analyze support tickets. 4 critical insights emerged:
Manual pattern investigation: Clerks couldn't quickly spot trends like "every Monday" or "after holidays"
Missing school context: Without seeing closures/holidays, clerks wasted time on false positives
Fragmented workflows: Messaging tools required leaving the profile, discouraging proactive outreach
No intervention visibility: Difficult to understand what had been tried and by whom
Building the case
I presented these findings at Product Office Hours, framing the redesign around 3 business outcomes:
🏠 Family engagement: Visual representations of data act as conversation starters for specific and relevant two-way messages to families about their student
📈 Sales enablement: Compelling visual for demos competes well with lengthy data tables and meaningless analytics
💚 Improved adoption: Easier pattern recognition + Fewer steps to take action = More completed interventions
Persona
👤 Role: School Secretary/Attendance Clerk
🏫 School: Lincoln Middle School (850 students) in Riverside, California
Primary goal: Maintain accurate, up-to-the-minute attendance records and identify students needing intervention
Key frustrations: High volume of manual data entry, pattern recognition takes hours, chasing down information across multiple systems
Main need: Visual system that makes patterns obvious and enables quick action without context switching
💼 Key jobs-to-be-done
Primary job: As an attendance clerk, I need to quickly identify if a student has concerning attendance patterns so that I can intervene with supportive action.
Secondary job: Understand what interventions have been tried and when
Tertiary job: Take action (message family, document notes) without leaving the profile
🔬 Hypothesis
A time-based data visualization will enable attendance clerks to analyze patterns at a glance and make faster intervention decisions.
📈 How will success be measured?
Time to identify patterns: Target <30 seconds per student
Fewer steps to take action: Target half the amount of steps
Increase in number of direct messages sent using Attendance Plus
Rather than committing to a single direction, I used Claude AI to rapidly prototype 4 approaches for stakeholder evaluation. Building all four interactive prototypes took 1 day versus the typical 1-1.5 weeks—allowing faster exploration and feedback.
From 4 directions to a final decision
Enhanced data table - Filterable list with date, type, reason, and action
Heatmap - Color-intensity grid showing absence frequency by week
Timeline - Horizontal view with color-coded markers
Calendar grid - Month-by-month calendar with attendance states
Why the calendar works
After reviewing with product leadership, we selected the calendar visualization for 3 reasons:
Familiar mental model: Universal understanding, no learning curve
Progressive disclosure: Natural breakdown into three investigation levels—yearly for pattern recognition, monthly for contextual investigation, weekly for intervention documentation
Communication enablement: Time-based layout gives clerks context needed for targeted family messages
Design system parity
After validating the calendar direction, I translated the prototype into production-ready designs:
Design system parity: Reused the existing calendar component from the district calendar page to ensure visual consistency and reduce engineering lift
Responsiveness: Adapted layouts for tablet (810px min-width); mobile deferred due to engineering constraints
Accessibility: Ensured WCAG AA compliance through color + shape encoding, sufficient contrast, and keyboard navigation support
Scoping for iterative delivery
I worked backwards from the larger idea to create an iterative delivery with engineering. We broke down our scope of the comprehensive redesign into 3 shippable user stories:
Pattern recognition: As an attendance clerk, I need calendar views with visual encoding so that I can identify patterns without manual calculation
Assign interventions: As an attendance clerk, I need consolidated intervention management so that I can assign actions without navigating multiple pages
Complete actions: As an attendance clerk, I need unified messaging so that I can contact guardians faster with clear recipient visibility
This sequencing delivered immediate pattern recognition value while building toward complete workflows.
🗺️ Navigating design system constraints
ParentSquare lacks a documented design system, creating risk of visual inconsistency. I leveraged an existing calendar component from the district calendar page, ensuring consistency and reducing engineering lift. This pragmatic choice also opened future possibilities—the component is now being considered for parent-facing features.
Learning: Working within constraints can drive better solutions. Reusing existing patterns accelerated development and created unexpected opportunities.
🤩 From big vision to iterative execution
My initial concept was a comprehensive redesign; a responsive calendar visualization, intervention management, and unified direct messaging. Translating this into discrete, shippable engineering stories was new territory. I learned to work backwards from the "big idea," collaborating with engineering to sequence features—core calendar first, then layered workflows.
Learning: Big impact doesn't require big-bang launches. Strategic sequencing delivers value faster while managing risk.
🤝 Building trust through evidence
Presenting to leadership required more than showing designs—I needed to build conviction. I structured my presentation around evidence: customer pain points, business value propositions, and prototype validation. Using business framing showed I understood the "why," not just the "what."
Learning: Leadership alignment requires speaking their language. Evidence-based storytelling builds trust and secures resources.
📊 The adoption blindspot
Attendance Plus launched at the start of the 2025-26 school year. We're building student attendance history from scratch, making long-term impact measurement difficult. We won't see the full value of pattern recognition features until students accumulate months of data. Early adoption metrics are promising, but improved student outcomes require patience and longitudinal measurement.
Learning: Product impact timelines don't always align with project timelines. Design for day-one value while building toward long-term outcomes.
