The school should be contacting you and working with you and your child to try to reduce or eliminate the absences.
Notice: the school is required to tell you every time your child is absent without an excuse. It might be by phone call, or in writing.
Conference: If your child has 3 unexcused absences in a month, the school should schedule a conference with you and your child to try to understand what is causing the absences.
Assessment: For students in middle school or high school, the school might ask them to take the “WARNS” (the Washington Assessment of Risks and Needs), or another assessment, to try to understand what might be causing the absences. You can read more about the WARNS at the Washington State University WARNS website, here: https://warns.wsu.edu/.
Steps to Reduce Absences: the school should be working with you and your child on steps to try to reduce absences.
If your child has an IEP or a 504 plan, the school should invite you to a team meeting. If there are concerns about behavior, or mental health, the school may need to invite a specialist to join you for the team meeting to try to figure out what might be leading to the absences, and how to address them. If you and the rest of the team are not sure what is triggering your child's absences, or other behaviors that are getting in the way of them getting to school, the team, with your consent, can do a “functional behavior assessment”. That assessment can then be used to help develop a positive behavior intervention plan.
If your child does not have an IEP (Individualized Education Program) or 504 plan, but you think they might have a disability and need special education or accommodations, the school should tell you about the right to request an evaluation.