School attendance officers play a pivotal role in the public school system. They verify the residency of students, assist homeless families in seeking community- and school-based services, and help students to enroll in the General Education Development (GED) high school equivalency testing program. Their primary role, though, is that of ensuring that all students comply with the compulsory attendance law by attending school on a regular basis. In an effort to meet the graduation and attendance requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also known as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), school administrators rely heavily upon the services provided by the school attendance officers. This dissertation explores the impact of legislative acts, such as No Child Left Behind and the Virginia's governor's mandate entitled the Children's Services System Transformation (CSST) Practice Model, as well as the effect that the school division size, number of attendance officers employed, and geographic locations of the school divisions have, upon the roles of school attendance officers in the Commonwealth of Virginia. An electronic survey of supervisors of attendance officers and interviews of attendance officers were used to collect data for the research study. This information was compared to information collected through a review of literature on the roles of attendance officers throughout the United States. The research study concludes with an evaluation of the data collected as well as with recommendations for future research studies. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]