Bringing Attendance Home

Please note: This toolkit was created prior to March 2020. We are continuing to make it available because many of the strategies offered remain applicable. Some adaptions may be needed given changing conditions. 

BAH cover page 2018

Bringing Attendance Home: Engaging Parents in Preventing Chronic Absence

Created with the help of practitioners who have worked successfully with families to improve attendance, this toolkit is filled with ideas, activities and materials that you can use to spark conversations with parents about how good attendance can help them fulfill their dreams and aspirations for their children’s futures.

Download the ToolkitView Our Video for Parents
This Toolkit Contains

  • Research showing a positive relationship between parent involvement and attendance as well as the results of new studies examining parents’ attitudes about school absences and their implications for messaging and action.

  • Key Principles for engaging parents on attendance.

  • Materials to share with parents about the importance of good attendance

  • Interactive Exercises to spark awareness, conversation and action with groups of parents about the consequences of poor attendance on their children’s futures.

The Interactive Exercises Include

Attendance Works believes that parent and family engagement is a key component of an effective, comprehensive approach to reducing chronic absence. Parents are essential partners in promoting good attendance because they have the power to:

  • Make getting children to school on time every day a top priority
  • Alert schools and community agencies to barriers that keep kids from attending class
  • Ask for and monitor data on chronic absence
  • Demand action to address systemic barriers that may be causing large numbers of students to miss too much school.

Take advantage of this free resource for engaging parents in your community.