Attendance Awareness Campaign Update

A project led by Attendance Works

August 16, 2022

Everyone has a role to play!

We are off to the races already, with school underway in some communities or just around the corner in others. As we re-enter the classroom, we want to stress how important it is to remember that everyone has a role to play in keeping students connected and coming to school every day. Many hands – all rowing in the same direction – are needed this fall!

We have published new resources and strategies for the fall. Find them on our Back-to-School page in our Showing Up Matters for R.E.A.L. toolkit. 

Sign up for our three-part, online PD for educators. Attendance Works team members will show you how to implement strategies, support students and mobilize community partners to engage students (and their families) that are missing school. Register as part of a team.

Health Providers are key partners and are better equipped to talk with families about whether their students should attend or stay home. Find our updated case statement to help you persuade Health Providers in your community to get started on helping you to reduce chronic absence.

Thank you to the 3,749 registrants for our August 3 webinar, Ensuring a Welcoming, Healthy and Restorative Start to School. Download a short discussion guide, the recording and slides and watch with a group! Find the materials.

Register today for AAC Webinar #4: What Works to Sustain Engagement and Attendance?, Wednesday, September 28, 2022: 12pm-1:30pm PT / 3pm–4:30pm ET. Sign up here.

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Registration is open for the final AAC 2022 webinar on 9/28, What Works to Sustain Engagement and Attendance? Hear local & state bright spots that showcase strategies to address the educational disparities exacerbated by the pandemic. https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8jCPW6VXSGqBsGjy_L6OPw #WholeChild #SchoolEveryDay

National Policy

We are champions of the National Partnership for Student Success (NPSS). The pandemic exacerbated educational and mental health challenges and widened long-standing inequities and opportunity gaps. To address these challenges, President Biden is calling for Americans to become tutors, mentors, success coaches, post-secondary transition coaches, and wraparound/integrated support providers. Read more . 

A new toolkit from the White House details How State and Local Leaders Can Use American Rescue Plan State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds to Address Students’ Academic and Mental Health Needs. Find the toolkit.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released new guidance for K-12 Schools and Early Care and Education Programs to Support Safe In-Person Learning. Learn more.

New Research

An analysis of the 2019-2020 school year data by the Civil Rights Project found that the pandemic-shortened year masked the fact that many school districts in California were on course for substantially higher rates of school suspension, and larger racial disparities among those suspended, had in-person education continued for the full year. Find the study, Unmasking School Discipline Disparities in California.

Partner Spotlight

The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading seeks to disrupt generational poverty and ensure more hopeful futures for children of low-income families. We support community-driven initiatives to improve the likelihood that these children will grasp the first rung of the success sequence ladder — graduation from high school.

The National Civic League and the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading are excited to announce the winners of the 2022 All-America City Award. Monitoring chronic absence and ensuring access to online learning when schools were closed were among the strategies employed by award recipients who used housing as a platform to ensure early school success. Learn more!

CGLR also announced GLR communities recognized as 2021-2022 Pacesetters for their work to advance 'must-do' priorities for early school success. Find the winners.

Corporate Sponsors

Thank you AAC 2022 Corporate Sponsors! Their support helps to make it possible for us to offer – at no charge – webinars and resources that equip everyone to improve student engagement and attendance.

Attendance in the News

Study: Pandemic-era suspension rate drops may be misleading, K-12 Dive, July 26, 2022

Three ways L.A. schools are trying to get ahead of chronic absenteeism, LA School Report, The 74, August 2, 2022

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Taking action to engage students and families is essential for addressing the absenteeism, enrollment declines and educational inequities that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Join the Attendance Awareness Campaign and address chronic absence today! http://bit.ly/1oqfID7

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

For more information contact: info@attendanceworks.org

Sign up for our newsletter: https://awareness.attendanceworks.org/contact/aam-updates