|
Attendance Awareness Campaign Update
A project led by Attendance Works
September 12, 2024
| |
|
States Leading the Way!
Fourteen states from different regions of the country are early adopters of our challenge to reduce chronic absence by 50% in five years. This amounts to actions that can support about 9.6 million students -- or 20% of the country's public school students. We're excited about this visible demonstration of how seriously education leaders across the country are taking the problem.
EdTrust and Nat Malkus with AEI joined us to announce the national chronic absence challenge. Learn more about the bold but achievable goal in our joint op-ed published in The Hill.
To support the challenge, we’re first developing tools for states, including a toolkit to support their work on a statewide student engagement and attendance plan tailored to their local circumstances. Find the first 3 steps of The 50% Challenge: Crafting a State Road Map toolkit.
Has your local leader declared that September is Attendance Awareness Month? Download and share the sample proclamation with your mayor, other elected leaders, school board, superintendent or local community leaders. The template can be easily tailored for local conditions.
| | Reducing today’s high levels of chronic absence requires a continual focus on engagement, support and the rebuilding of routines. Donate today to help propel the push for a full educational recovery. Donate today! | |
Attendance Awareness Webinars | |
|
Superintendents from Ohio, Topeka, Kansas and California will share their successes in reducing chronic absenteeism in different types of communities in webinar 4 on Sept. 25. You’ll also learn key findings from a new Ad Council Research Institute survey on how parents of K-12 students view school absences. A new toolkit will provide tips on messaging to motivate families to regularly send their children to school.
Register today for:
- Leadership For Sustainability: Superintendents Making a Difference, September 25, 2024, 12-1:30pm PT / 3-4:30pm ET.
- Missed a webinar? Find the recording and materials on our website.
Help to spread the word! Sample social media
🌟 Hear how superintendents from Ohio, Kansas and California are reducing chronic absence in their communities. Don’t miss out! Register now for our upcoming webinar. #BePresentBePowerful https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_slVpEcy1QZaYGIdh2fXvSw#/registration
| |
|
Attendance Tool Spotlight
Kaiser Permanente’s Thriving Schools has curated a list of its top health and wellness resources for school staff as well as policy development ideas for school and district leaders.
The Grad Partnership has a new tool, How to Improve Your School’s Response to Chronic Absenteeism, an 8-page document with spaces for notes. The tool offers tips for school-based teams to use in developing action plans for understanding chronic absenteeism in a local context and strategizing for designing interventions.
Several districts in California are seeing lower chronic absence rates in kindergarten. What do the three districts have in common, and what strategies are working to motivate families to send their kids to school regularly and on time? Learn more in the bright spot fact sheet.
| |
|
By harnessing the power of timely, disaggregated, relevant data, every state can ensure students’ unique needs are met and that students are in school receiving the instruction they need to succeed, the Data Quality Campaign writes in a new blog post.
Massachusetts launched the "Your Presence is Powerful" campaign as part of their continued efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism. The public pre-K-12 school community and adult learning classes are invited to submit a creative piece of artwork, music and more to express why they attend school. Submissions due by December 20, 2024.
| |
|
The National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) released a new resource on how chronic absenteeism is captured on the 2022 Nation’s Report Card. This shows an association between student absenteeism and declines in NAEP scores between 2019 and 2022. For example, in 4th grade: 27% of the 5 point drop in math and 45% of the 3 point drop in reading is associated with rising rates in absenteeism, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics.
The NAGB resource also proposes a set of research questions — using NAEP and other data sources — on chronic absenteeism and how we can understand how to get all students in school, engaged and learning. The resource includes a guide to attendance data and resources at the federal, state and independent data levels.
New research from the University of Southern California on national family surveys suggests that kids on track to be chronically absent suffer from more mental health challenges. It looks at mental health scores across demographic groups.
| |
|
Event Spotlight
Join us on September 17 for a webinar, Breaking the Attendance Barrier: The Power of Parent Teacher Home Visits, sponsored by Parent Teacher Home Visits.
A September 26 webinar will highlight the role of high-quality afterschool programs to help reduce chronic absenteeism. We will moderate the panel. Register for Highlighting the Role of Afterschool Programs in Reducing Chronic Absenteeism for Students in Partnership with Schools and Families, sponsored by US Department of Education.
| |
|
District Leadership PD
Would you like to boost your district administrator's ability to build better systems to improve engagement and attendance? Our Professional Leadership Attendance Network (PLAN) offers small groups an opportunity to learn from experts and each other and organize a clear action plan to engage your district team. Attendance Works will provide input on your plan. Learn more here, or email lorri@attendanceworks.org and zach@attendanceworks.org
| |
|
Partner Spotlight
The mission of the Everyone Graduates Center is to develop and disseminate the know-how required to enable all students to graduate from high school prepared for college, career and civic life.
-
A brief by EGC’s Robert Balfanz offers a synthesis of what we know about the district and school challenges of post-pandemic chronic absenteeism and what can be done to meet them.
Healthy Schools Campaign engages stakeholders and advocates for policy changes at local, state and national levels to ensure students have access to healthy school environments, including nutritious food, physical activity, comprehensive school health services, outdoor spaces and healthy built environments, including clean air, where they can learn and thrive.
HSC also convenes the Healthy Students, Promising Futures initiative, which supports states and school districts to expand and strengthen their school Medicaid program and leverage sustainable and sufficient funding for school health services.
| |
|
Corporate Sponsors
A special thanks to the corporate sponsors who have already committed to supporting our 2024 Attendance Awareness Campaign. Their investment makes it possible for us to provide you with free strategies and materials.
| |
|
Campaign Convening Partners
See the full list of Attendance Awareness Partners here.
| |
Copyright © 2024 Attendance Works, All rights reserved | | | | |
