Our theme this year, Rebound with Attendance! is more important than ever as we return to school this fall.

Rebound with Attendance! can be a reminder to everyone that monitoring attendance and reviewing absenteeism data from the first months of school can offer an early warning that a student is off track. This data shows which students or families, or groups of students, are in need of additional support as well as practices and policies in need of revision.

We are seeing attendance numbers that continue to be sky high throughout the country, indicating that millions of students are not accessing learning opportunities. Absenteeism in the first month of school, when students are learning fundamental skills, can predict poor attendance throughout the school year, research shows.

Regular attendance and participation, during any grade level, provides students an opportunity to learn and to reach for their dreams. When large numbers of students are chronically absent, schools and communities can work together to provide a comprehensive, tiered system of supports to students and families, that address the reasons for student absences. The tiers works best when foundational strategies, or practices for the whole school, are in place to prevent student absenteeism by establishing a strong school community, building relationships and ensuring effective communication.

Being in school for everyone this fall continues to be challenging. Yet we saw that the Attendance Awareness Campaign during September was celebrated with activities from schools and communities across the country. We are grateful for these efforts and more carried out by teachers, staff, education leaders and community partners who invested time and energy to ensure all students have access to opportunities to learn.

Here are a few of the metrics we’ve gathered from the AAC:

• 15,517 people registered for one of our Attendance Awareness Campaign webinars, compared to 9,971 last year.
• 37,780 people are signed up for our newsletters, compared with 34,430 last year.
• 12 attendance awareness updates emailed (go here to see them all).
• 101 national and state level partners disseminated information to their constituents.
• 1,100+ news stories and blog posts featured attendance issues or Attendance Awareness Month in July, August and September.
• 325,000 website page views in July, August and September.
• 1,439 tweets featured the #SchoolEveryDay hashtag in July, August and September, generating 13,180,244 million potential impressions.

Here are a few more highlights:

Four Attendance Awareness Campaign webinars:

• Committed: Supporting Attendance and Participation to the Very Last Day of School, Wednesday, April 14, 2021
• Engaged: Using Summer to Connect with Students and Families, Wednesday, May 26, 2021
• Welcomed: Embracing Students, Families and Educators in the New School Year, Wednesday, August 4, 2021
• Supported: Leveraging Attendance Data to Ensure Ongoing Success, Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Pathways to Engagement: A Toolkit for Covid-19 Recovery Through Attendance!

See a list of Kaiser Permanente, EveryDay Labs, French Toast). Their investment helps make it possible for us to provide strategies and materials at no cost to thousands of practitioners throughout the country!