EveryDay Labs vs. Apptegy Attendance Pro

With so many students facing chronic absenteeism, a proactive approach, built on immediate communication and actionable insights, will get more students back on track for success. Two solutions that support districts in this proactive attendance work are EveryDay Labs and Apptegy Attendance Pro.

Both platforms aim to reduce student absenteeism and simplify the lives of the educators they serve, but their approaches have some similarities and differences. In this post, we break down their shared core capabilities and the areas where they diverge to help guide your decision as you choose a partner in improving chronic absenteeism.

Shared Strengths: Proactive, Root Cause Approaches and Helpful Data Insights

Proactive, automatic outreach with conversation insights 

If you’re still spending hours cross-referencing spreadsheets and doing manual phone and outreach, both of these solutions offer a better way. Once a student is marked absent or begins trending towards chronic absenteeism, Apptegy Attendance Pro triggers a text notification to families in their home language. Families can respond and interact with their AI technology, with key details from those conversations appearing within a staff-facing dashboard. 

EveryDay Labs sends biweekly texts to families in their home language, keeping them updated on their students’ attendance and offering support through the 24/7 Family Support Bot. Educators can view weekly reporting to see which resources families have been requesting. There is also a mail component to this proactive outreach, which is discussed in the “Where the Solutions Part Ways” section.    

Root Cause Identification

While early action is important, so is understanding the underlying causes driving absenteeism. Both EveryDay Labs and Apptegy provide tools that help educators uncover the underlying reasons why a student is missing school, and channels to help connect families to the resources they need to overcome barriers to attendance. Apptegy leverages AI prompts to engage with the family and uncover the root cause, while EveryDay Labs’ Family Support Bot can help connect families to district and community resources.  Whether it’s transportation troubles, health issues, or family challenges, both programs work on the educator’s behalf to help families and students overcome barriers to attendance.

Attendance Data Analytics

Both Apptegy Attendance Pro and EveryDay Labs integrate with your Student Information System (SIS), presenting the latest attendance data at the student, school and district level within clean, visual dashboards that help educators act early and work effectively within a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework. 

Where the Solutions Part Ways: Evidence-based and multi-channel interventions, intervention management tools, human support

Apptegy was originally built as a family communication tool, and Attendance Pro is a module within their larger platform. EveryDay Labs was built with the express purpose of improving attendance, leveraging behavioral science, data science, and family engagement principles. These origin stories inform many of the differences between the two solutions. 

Behaviorally informed, evidence-based, multi-channel approach 

Co-founded by behavioral scientists, EveryDay Labs offers an attendance improvement program that is proven to promote positive behavior change. Families often underestimate the amount of days their students are missing, which is why the EveryDay Labs chronic absenteeism intervention leverages mail and text nudges, providing personalized, accessible information on their student’s attendance. The mail component adds an additional layer of impact, serving as a social artifact and encouraging long term change, while text messages alone have a shorter shelf life, and in turn, lesser impact. EveryDay Labs applies the same behavioral science principles to its truancy management system, providing nonpunitive truancy notifications that can be sent via mail or email. 

Apptegy Attendance Pro relies entirely on a digital-first approach, leveraging SMS text messaging and push notifications built directly into your district's mobile application.

For districts answering to strict compliance standards or seeking grant funding, evidence tiers are crucial. Thanks to its research base and numerous randomized controlled trials, EveryDay Labs holds a coveted "Strong Evidence" rating validated through Johns Hopkins' Evidence for ESSA. 

EveryDay Labs also takes proactive outreach one step further by sending out positive messages when students are on a roll with good attendance, because a little celebration can go a long way to keep the momentum going. 

Intervention Management Tools

While both programs understand the importance of early intervention, the EveryDay Labs solution offers a space for staff to coordinate their own ongoing interventions. This includes the ability to filter and tag students who are experiencing similar challenges, place them into intervention groups, and monitor their progress. This work is visible across all members of the team, making it easier to stay aligned and efficient. 

Human Support for Human Families 

Educators are eternally strapped for time, and EveryDay Labs and Apptegy both understand the power of strategic automation to liberate teams from administrative work, freeing up more time to focus on building relationships. But chronic absenteeism is a deeply complex issue, and the power of a genuine human touch still goes a long way, even though it’s often in short supply.

Apptegy leverages conversational AI to automate two-way logistics, like collecting reason codes and categorizing excuses over text messages, and passes high-risk cases to district internal staff. EveryDay Labs goes one step further to support district staff with a multilingual Family Support Team that works directly on their behalf. 

When families have questions about an attendance nudge or are looking for help navigating the road to better attendance, they can connect with real humans in their home language. This additional human touchpoint seamlessly plugs into the district’s ongoing work to build strong family-district partnerships and a culture of attendance. Families receive genuine empathy and personalized guidance rather than just an algorithmic response, transforming attendance outreach from a ping into a partnership.

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Curious about bringing on EveryDay Labs as a partner? Reach out today!