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A Note from the Executive Director
How do we begin to re-engage families and students in school? It’s important to take stock of the misconceptions students and families may believe, and make sure they know about the valuable opportunities for learning and engagement they miss when they are absents from class.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, a mismatch between grades and student levels of achievement may be contributing to the mistaken belief that students do not need to show up to school to learn. A new report finds that families may be getting the wrong signal about their students’ academic progress. Read our blog post.
Attendance typically dips before and after school breaks. Consider planning an engaging event or activity, or a spirit week around your school’s spring break. Download our handout with activities that can encourage students to attend, participate and strengthen relationships.
In the midst of unusually high chronic absence levels, we can nurture a culture of engagement and attendance. I was delighted to participate in a Matter of Fact segment featuring Richmond Public Schools' comprehensive approach to reducing chronic absenteeism, which includes a prevention-oriented court strategy. Watch!
Warmly,
Hedy Chang
Founder and Executive Director
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Attendance Awareness Campaign! | | |
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We’re ready to launch the 2024 Attendance Awareness Campaign with our partners! This year’s theme, Be Present, Be Powerful!, is a reminder of the connection between school attendance and realizing our hopes and dreams. It is a call for everyone to focus on ensuring students show up every day, even when it isn’t easy.
This year we will highlight messaging that clarifies for students and families the role that schools play in promoting student well-being and achievement. We’re updating the Count Us In! toolkit, and will soon release 2024 Key Messages, a new campaign badge and updated posters.
Join us April 3 for the first AAC 2024 webinar, On the Front Line: The Crucial Role of Teachers. Speakers will share how districts, principals, school staff, families and the community can assist and equip teachers to forge relationships with students and their families and build awareness about why showing up matters. Register!
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Did you know that Covid relief dollars are specifically designed to identify students who are experiencing homelessness and remove barriers to their school attendance? With just seven months remaining to obligate federal American Rescue Plan Homeless Children and Youth, or ARP-HCY funding, there is still time to leverage this revenue. Check out our new blog post. |
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District and State Resources | | |
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There are seven key steps that local school board members can take to address the attendance crisis in their districts. Take a look at “Seize the Data: Using Chronic Absence Data to Drive Student Engagement,” a brief we developed with the California School Boards Association offering useful questions, actions and analysis for all LEAs.
To help get students back in the classroom, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) launched a multilingual campaign that includes a television and radio public service announcement, billboards and transit ads, email and social media messages.
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Active family involvement correlates with soaring attendance rates. On March 28, we're diving into the power of family engagement in tackling chronic absenteeism. Register.
Did you miss our earlier webinars? Find the event recording, presentation slides and resource links on our website:
- Better Together: Integrating Attendance and Behavior, March 6, 2024
- Overcoming Chronic Absenteeism: Solutions for School Leaders, February 27, 2024
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Attendance Works also offers fee-based consulting services tailored to individual state agencies, school districts and schools, in addition to free resources and strategies. Find out more. |
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New Study: School Nurses Are Untapped Resource to Combat Chronic Absenteeism, Yahoo! News, February 27, 2024
An unexpected way to fight chronic absenteeism, The Hechinger Report, February 29, 2024
Learning Loss Win-Win: High-Impact Tutoring in DC Boosts Attendance, Study Finds, The74, March 1, 2024
Battling student absenteeism with grandmas, vans and a lot of love, WFAE 90.7, March 9, 2024
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We Can't Do It Without You! | | |
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We rely on contributors like you to help us keep Attendance Works resources free for everyone. Join our movement and donate today!
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Attendance Works would like to express its deep appreciation to the foundations that are currently funding our work nationally and in communities across the country: Abell Foundation, The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, Heising-Simons Foundation, The Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation, Hyde Family Foundation, Kaiser Permanente, The Lemala Fund, Open Society Institute–Baltimore, Overdeck Family Foundation. |
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About Attendance Works
Attendance Works is non-profit, national and state initiative. Our mission is to advance student success and reduce equity gaps by addressing chronic absence. We aim to ensure that every school in every state not only tracks chronic absence data for its individual students, but also partners with families and community agencies to help those children.
Questions?
For more information contact: info@attendanceworks.org
Copyright © 2024 Attendance Works, All rights reserved
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