Planning for Attendance Awareness Month in September is underway. Our Count Us In! toolkit 4.0, now completely on-line, includes guidance on how to create your own contest or event, free webinars, tips for reaching out to the media and social media tools to spread the word.
The speakers on our August 16 webinar will show how communities across the country are broadening the circle of partners to include groups that can address barriers that keep children from attending school. Watch for the registration date! Mark your calendar for our next free webinars on September 8, and November 1.
Visit the Attendance Awareness Month website
Find resources in the Count Us In! Toolkit
Over 1,500 individuals registered for our first webinar, Motivating Attendance All Year Long, and 685 participants viewed, asking questions and getting answers. Our May 17 webinar, Using Data to Drive Action: Portraits of Chronic Absence, highlighted efforts of innovators in 3 states who have used chronic absence data to drive interventions.
Why focus on September for Attendance Awareness Month? At the start of the school year schools and communities lay out expectations for the coming year, which is a perfect time to begin to develop a culture of attendance. A clear message about the connection between good attendance and student achievement is easily incorporated into rallies, assemblies, back to school nights and stories in your local media. Don’t be shy about spreading the word!
Kids who miss too much school in pre-K and kindergarten are less likely to be reading in the third grade, making it much harder to learn in the years that follow. Studies show that 75% of students who are chronically absent in 6th grade will dropout of high school, and students who are chronically absent in high school are 7.4 times more likely to dropout.
Let’s do what we can to turn around chronic absence in our schools and help kids to be in school every day!
Missed our April 12 and May 17 webinars? View the recordings here.
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