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Ohio Department of Education
Getting to
Class is the First Step to Academic Success
Brittany Miracle, Program Administrator
September is National Attendance Awareness Month. Regular school
attendance is so important it gets an entire month of recognition and
celebration! (Not that National Taco Day on Oct. 4 isn’t cause for
celebration, too.)
Did you know?
Good attendance is important starting in kindergarten. Children with
good attendance in kindergarten and first grade are more likely to read
on grade level in third grade.
By grade 6, poor attendance can be an early warning sign for students
at risk of dropping out of school.
By ninth grade, good attendance can predict graduation rates even
better than eighth-grade test scores.
A student’s attendance in the previous year can predict his or her
attendance in the current school year.
Students miss school for many reasons. They may be absent sporadically
due to illnesses, college visits or planned family events. Other
students may face more significant barriers to regular attendance
resulting in more frequent and long-term absences. Some absences may be
excused and others are unexcused. Regardless of the reason for the
absence, every day in school matters because some lessons cannot be
made up at home.
Attendance has a significant impact on achievement throughout a
student’s school career. How can schools help students get to school
regularly? It’s simple — talk with your students and families about the
value of regular school attendance!
Building a school culture that recognizes the importance of regular and
improved attendance, rather than perfect attendance, keeps students’
eyes on the prize throughout the entire year. Schools can provide
individualized resources and friendly reminders about regular
attendance to empower students and families to improve their school
attendance.
September is a great time to start talking about attendance with your
students and their families and caregivers. Use these tips when writing
attendance messaging for your school:
Mode: Share your message using a variety of methods, such as social
media, email, radio ads, postcards, magnets and newspaper ads.
Partnerships: Emphasize that schools and families are partners who
share a common interest in students’ success. Build partnerships
throughout your entire community to share your attendance messaging.
Comparison: Use charts, graphs and positive language to show
individuals how their attendance is changing over time or how it
compares to their peers. This is effective when communicating with a
student about individual attendance or when encouraging friendly
competitions between classrooms to meet attendance goals.
Individualize: Consider students’ unique needs when talking with
students and families about how to improve attendance.
Accumulation: Highlight that a couple of absences per month add up over
the course of the year.
Self-efficacy: Focus messaging on how parents influence their
children’s attendance. Empower older students to adopt strategies to
improve their own attendance.
Simplification: Write in friendly language that is easy to understand
and free of legal jargon.
Frequency: Communicate early and often — before students develop
attendance problems — to underscore the importance of getting to school
regularly. Start your messaging with the first day of school and
continue through the end of the year.
Check out Attendance Works’ website to see which districts across the
nation are participating in National Attendance Awareness Month and get
ideas to promote attendance in your school. Share your attendance
activities with us this month and all year long on social media by
tagging @OHEducation on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Brittany Miracle is a program administrator at the Ohio Department of
Education. She coordinates school improvement initiatives and student
support strategies—including efforts to improve student attendance.
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