Attendance, Tardiness, and Truancy

Why is it so important to attend school and be on time every single day!

10 Facts about the importance of attendance are listed below: (attendanceworks.org website)


  1. Absenteeism in the first month of school can predict poor attendance throughout the school year. Half the students who miss 2-4 days in September go on to miss nearly a month of school. Read more...

  2. Over 8 million U.S. students miss nearly a month of school each year. Read more...

  3. Absenteeism and its ill effects start early. One in 10 kindergarten and first grade students are chronically absent. Read more...

  4. Poor attendance can influence whether children read proficiently by the end of third grade or be held back. Read more...

  5. By 6th grade, chronic absence becomes a leading indicator that a student will drop out of high school. Read more...

  6. Research shows that missing 10 percent of the school, or about 18 days in most school districts, negatively affects a student’s academic performance. That’s just two days a month and that’s known as chronic absence. Read more...

  7. Students who live in communities with high levels of poverty are four times more likely to be chronically absent than others often for reasons beyond their control, such as unstable housing, unreliable transportation and a lack of access to health care. Read more...

  8. When students improve their attendance rates, they improve their academic prospects and chances for graduating. Read more...

  9. Attendance improves when schools engage students and parents in positive ways and when schools provide mentors for chronically absent students. Read more...

  10. Most school districts and states don’t look at all the right data to improve school attendance. They track how many students show up every day and how many are skipping school without an excuse, but not how many are missing so many days in excused and unexcused absence that they are headed off track academically. Read more...

Dropout Prevention

  • School social workers provide counseling support and assistance to students at risk of dropping out of school. They also work to increase the graduation rates for CMS high schools.

  • School social workers provide students with assistance in the areas of academic support, bullying prevention and intervention, counseling, crisis intervention, financial resources, medical services, mental health services, peer mediation, positive decision-making and problem solving and substance abuse services.

  • School social workers build partnerships with community programs that serve students who are at risk for dropping out of school and provide linkage to community services.


Important Information

If you are concerned about your child not attending school please reach out to your child's Administrator, Counselor, Social Worker, or all three.

If you are a student who is not attending school or lost interest in attending school, please reach out to your school social worker, counselor, administrator or all three to seek help. It's that important. Their future depends on it!

Some of the actions taken or programs implemented at Butler to combat chronic absenteeism:

  • The teachers, take attendance daily to ensure that our students are present and help us track when a student misses class.

  • Our attendance secretary monitors input of attendance by the teachers, sends out reminders, and also sends out letters regarding absences.

  • Administrators, Counselors, and the School Social Worker contact students who are noted to be chronically absent and not attending school regularly

  • The social worker and sometimes other staff attend home visits when we are unable to reach students and or parents to correct attendance.

  • Attendance Contracts are created with the student and/or parent to encourage the student to begin making better choices in attending school daily.