Why is Attendance Important?

• Children who miss too many days in kindergarten and first grade can struggle academically in later years and often have trouble mastering reading by the end of third grade.

• By middle and high school, absenteeism is a leading warning sign that a student will drop out of high school.

• Nearly 67% of course failures are attributed to low attendance.

• Students are considered chronically absent even if they only miss a day or two every few weeks.

• Attendance is a top indicator of being on track for graduation and for college and career readiness.

• Absences can affect the whole classroom if the teacher has to slow down learning to help children catch up.

A Helpful Resource

https://www.attendanceworks.org

Attendance Works is a national and state initiative that promotes better policy, practice and research around school attendance. Their goal is to ensure that more districts track this often overlooked metric and that schools and communities take the right steps to improve attendance.

In addition to providing education and awareness, Attendance Works offers a wide variety of resources and strategies for monitoring, understanding, and addressing chronic absence beginning in the early grades through secondary school.

These strategies can help promote:

• Positive Engagement with families and students,

• Actionable Data to help you identify students with too many absences, and the

• Capacity Building to help build a culture of attendance in your classroom, school or district.

*A toolkit is available to help guide you with this process.

*All tools can be downloaded and used without express permission from Attendance Works.