September is School Attendance Awareness Month

The start of a new school year seems like a great time to talk about the importance of regular attendance.  Perhaps that's why Attendance Works, a national and state initiative that promotes better policy and practice around school attendance, chose the month of September as School Attendance Awareness Month.

Did you know that 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.  Absenteeism and its ill effects start early.  One in 10 kindergarten and first grade students are chronically absent.  It probably will not surprise you to learn that poor attendance can influence whether children read proficiently by the end of third grade or be held back.  By 6th grade, chronic absence becomes a leading indicator that a student will drop out of high school.  Research shows that missing 10 percent of the school year, 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.

You can find information sheets for parents on the importance of attendance in multiple languages at this link.


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