Understanding California’s SARB Process
A School Attendance Review Board (SARB) brings schools, families, and community agencies together to help students overcome attendance or behavior barriers. The process is intended to reconnect students with school, coordinate support, and prevent problems from escalating into the juvenile justice system.
Support Comes First
A SARB referral is generally not the first response to an attendance problem. Schools should identify barriers early, work collaboratively with families, document interventions, and connect students with appropriate resources before referring a case for formal SARB review.
Important attendance terms
Chronic absence
A student is chronically absent when the student misses 10 percent or more of the schooldays in which the student was enrolled and school was taught. Both excused and unexcused absences count toward this measure.
Truancy
California’s initial truancy classification concerns specified unexcused full-day absences, tardies, or absences of more than 30 minutes on three occasions during a school year, or a qualifying combination of them.
SARB referral
A SARB referral is a coordinated intervention used after school-level efforts have not resolved serious attendance or behavior concerns and the local referral requirements have been satisfied.
Chronic absence and truancy are not interchangeable. Chronic absence includes excused and unexcused missed instructional time. Truancy is a legal classification connected with specified unexcused absences or tardies.
How the SARB process generally works
Exact procedures and referral criteria vary by county, district, and local SARB rules. The following sequence describes the common California framework.
Identify attendance concerns
School personnel review attendance data for patterns of absence, tardiness, lost instructional time, or disengagement. Staff should consider both individual cases and broader patterns affecting student groups.
Engage the student and family
The school communicates with the student and parent or guardian to understand the reasons for missed school and identify barriers such as health, transportation, housing, safety, caregiving, academic difficulty, or school climate.
Provide school-level interventions
Interventions may include an attendance conference, Student Success Team meeting, counseling, mentoring, academic assistance, transportation support, health referrals, an attendance plan, or connections with community services.
Review readiness for referral
If interventions have not resolved the concern, school personnel assemble attendance records, communications, interventions, outcomes, and other required documentation. A SARB representative or attendance supervisor may screen the case and return an incomplete referral for additional work.
Notify the family
The family receives information about the referral and conference, the reasons for referral, the SARB process, and the records that may be shared. Parents or guardians are invited to participate in the conference.
Hold the SARB conference
The student and family meet with a multidisciplinary panel. Membership varies locally and may include education, social services, health, behavioral health, probation, law enforcement, and community representatives.
Develop an agreement or directives
The SARB works with the student and family to establish clear responsibilities, services, supports, and attendance expectations. The plan should respond to the student’s circumstances rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all solution.
Monitor and follow up
Assigned personnel monitor attendance, confirm that promised services are delivered, communicate with the family, and adjust the plan when circumstances change. Additional conferences may be scheduled when needed.
A Good Plan Addresses the Barrier
An effective SARB agreement does more than tell a student to attend school. It identifies what is interfering with attendance, assigns responsibility for specific supports, establishes reasonable expectations, and creates a follow-up process that holds both the family and participating agencies accountable.
Possible supports and interventions
- Academic assessment, tutoring, credit recovery, or alternative educational placement
- Mental-health, counseling, mentoring, or behavioral supports
- Medical, dental, vision, or substance-use services
- Transportation, housing, food, clothing, or other basic-needs assistance
- School-climate, bullying, safety, or relationship interventions
- Support for foster youth, students experiencing homelessness, English learners, or students with disabilities
- Family outreach and connections with community-based organizations
Legal action is not the starting point
The SARB structure was created to maximize school and community resources, reengage students, and divert young people away from the justice system. When attendance does not improve after documented interventions and SARB involvement, additional referrals or legal remedies may be considered where authorized. They should not replace early, supportive, and family-centered intervention.
Documentation and follow-through
Documentation should be accurate, objective, and free from judgmental language. Records may include attendance history, required notices, family communications, attempted outreach, interventions, service referrals, the SARB agreement or directives, progress reports, and outcomes.
Documentation is not merely a compliance exercise. It helps the team understand what has already been attempted, prevents families from repeating their story unnecessarily, and supports continuity when staff or service providers change.
Questions for an effective SARB review
- Have we spoken directly with the student and family about the attendance barriers?
- Were required notices and school-level interventions completed and documented?
- Are disability, health, housing, transportation, safety, or school-climate factors involved?
- Does the plan identify who will provide each service and by what date?
- Are the expectations understandable, achievable, and responsive to the student’s circumstances?
- How and when will the team review progress and revise the plan?