Attendance Awareness Campaign Update for April 13, 2023

Attendance Awareness Campaign Update

A project led by Attendance Works

April 13, 2023

It's the 2023 Attendance Awareness Campaign!

We’ve opened the 2023 Attendance Awareness Campaign with the theme Showing Up Together! We are focusing on the critical need to develop and strengthen relationships with families and students to improve both engagement and attendance.

Be sure to download the new 2023 badge, view the updated web-based Count Us In! toolkit and find tips and resources for your campaign. Join us and more than 100 national partners working to bring more communities into our movement by signing up for updates.

The 2023 webinar series will emphasize how attendance is a leading indicator of family and student engagement and how monitoring chronic absence can help educators and community partners work together to address today’s education challenges.

Our next free webinar, Relationships All Year Round: Nurturing Showing Up, is on Wednesday, May 10, 12:00pm PT / 3:00pm ET. Everyone who registers will receive a link to the webinar recording and presentation slides. We need your help to get the word out! Share our social media messages (below).

Donate now

Together we have the opportunity to truly change the life trajectory for millions of students. Join the movement to get more kids engaged and back in school. Donate today.

Hedy Chang, Executive Director

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What To Do When

Unsure how to begin planning for Attendance Awareness Month this fall? We've laid out a plan with suggested actions and resources. In April you can plan a meeting and agree on activities with our materials for meetings. It's also a good time to recruit partners to support the work.

Attendance Tools

Send the message to families that if their child is suffering from anxiety, they are not alone. Our new handout for educators offers brief information on the signs of anxiety and what families can do to support their child.

Do your students receive Medicaid-funded school health services? Continuous coverage protection has ended. Schools can help families with outreach, enrollment assistance and more. Healthy Schools Campaign has a toolkit for schools and districts.

Did you miss the first AAC 2023 webinar, Belonging and Engagement: The Keys to Showing Up? Find the recording and other resources.

Events

RaaWee K12 is offering a free, virtual workshop for districts on April 20, titled Building a Strategic Plan for Reducing Chronic Absenteeism and Truancy. The workshop is part of a series. Learn more and register.

Research Spotlight

When an absence is labeled unexcused, it affects how a student and family are treated. Attendance Works and PACE released the report Examining Disparities in Unexcused Absences Across California Schools which shows how overuse of the “unexcused” label for absences could be deepening education inequities and interfering with efforts to improve attendance.

Corporate Sponsors

A special thanks to our Attendance Awareness Campaign corporate sponsors for their commitment to help ensure that every child and youth is engaged and in school every day. Their investment makes it possible for us to provide you with free strategies and materials.

Attendance in the News

Students are chronically absent across the country. COVID seems to have made it worse. ABC News, April 12, 2023

Implications of Chronic Absenteeism for Student Learning, Public Policy Institute of California, April 4, 2023

The School Where the Pandemic Never Ended, New York Times, April 5, 2023

Taking ownership | Mentoring group works to help Racine students’ grades, attendance, The Journal Times, April 2, 2023

Avondale superintendent explains chronic student absence solutions, yahoo! news, March 31, 2023

Sample Tweets

How can building relationships address the disengagement & absenteeism in today's schools? Save the date for @attendanceworks @IELconnects & partners AAC Webinar #2: Relationships All Year Round: Nurturing Showing Up, on May 10! https://www.attendanceworks.org/resources/webinars/ #SchoolEveryDay #ShowingUpTogether

It's the 2023 Attendance Awareness Campaign!! @attendanceworks & partners are excited to announce this year's AAC theme: #ShowingUpTogether Because partnerships are crucial in addressing the devastating effects of interrupted learning & increased stress. Join us: https://bit.ly/3nAmPPc

Campaign Convening Partners

See the full list of Attendance Awareness Partners here.

Attendance Works is a non-profit, national and state initiative. Our mission is to promote equal opportunities to learn and advance student success by reducing chronic absence. Find free downloadable resources, research, consulting services and more on our website: www.attendanceworks.org

For more information contact: info@attendanceworks.org