Our theme this year, Stay Connected, Keep Learning! is a call to students, families and everyone in the school community to lift up the value and importance of showing up to school, whether learning is in person or distance.

Stay Connected, Keep Learning! emphasizes the importance of predictable routines, helping all students to continue to learn even when they cannot get to school, and encouraging adults to investigate the factors that motivate showing up. Our newest toolkit, Showing Up Matters for R.E.A.L., offers a new framework with messaging resources for educators who are communicating with families and students about why showing up to school matters.

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 addresses the reasons for student absences. The tiers works best when foundational strategies, or practices for the whole school, are in place to create a strong school community, build relationships and ensure 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 AAC 2022:

• 13, 893 people registered for one of our Attendance Awareness Campaign webinars.
• 42,645 people are signed up for our newsletters.
• 10 attendance awareness updates emailed (go here to see them all)
• 103 national and state level partners disseminated information to their constituents
• 1,528 news stories and blog posts featured attendance issues or Attendance Awareness Month in July, August and September
• 459,708 website page views in July, August and September
• 1,900 tweets featured the #SchoolEveryDay hashtag in July, August and September, generating 16 million potential impressions.

Check out our AAC 2022 By the Numbers graphic with bright spots, metrics and our partners!

Here are a few more highlights:

Four Attendance Awareness Campaign webinars:

• Keep Kids Engaged and Showing Up for Learning: Relationships, Routines and Partnerships, Wednesday, April 6, 2022
• What Promotes Engagement and Attendance? Insights from Students, Parents and Educators, Wednesday, May 25, 2022
• Ensuring a Welcoming, Healthy and Restorative Start to School, Wednesday, August 3, 2022
• What Works to Sustain Engagement and Attendance? Wednesday, September 28, 2022

We owe a special thank you to this year’s Attendance Awareness Campaign corporate sponsors (EveryDay Labs, Kaiser Permanente Thriving Schools, RaaWeeK12, and Safe and Civil Schools). Their investment helps make it possible for us to provide strategies and materials at no cost to thousands of practitioners throughout the country!

Join the Campaign!! Sign up for our newsletter to get regular updates about the Attendance Awareness Campaign in your email inbox.