EVERY SCHOOL DAY COUNTS! 
Year three of our county-wide
Attendance Awareness Campaign  kicks off!
Themes for October: 
Elementary School- What I love about school...
Key Message:  
Good attendance is important in kindergarten and first grade because:
1) children learn to read and write in these early grades;
2) reading provides the building blocks to understand math;
3) children learn how to be good students in the early years; and
4) students have fun and make friends when they are in school.
 
Middle and High School-
Students' attendance in middle school is a predictor of their likelihood to graduate from high school.   

Key Message: 
Without intervention, three quarters of students who are chronically absent in
6th grade will drop out of high school.
 
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Communication Tools/Strategies:
Attendance improves when a school community offers a warm and welcoming environment that engages students and families and offers enriching learning opportunities. A key component of the engagement is helping families learn about the positive impact of good attendance and the negative effects of chronic absenteeism on realizing their hopes and dreams for their children. Parents may not realize that even excused absences can, if they accumulate, cause their children to fall behind and that building the habit of attendance in the early grades can influence their children's chances of graduating from high school.  

Tips for parents of children in the early grades, created by Attendance Works and Reach Out and Read. 
 
Tips for parents with children in middle and high school.
 
2016 Attendance Awareness  Poster Contest

Here is an opportunity for students to use creativity to tell us why "Every School Day Counts: Attend today, achieve for a lifetime!"

Students fall behind when they miss too much school, even if it is just a day or two every few weeks. School success goes hand-in-hand with good attendance. 

Poster Theme:
"School is your first and most important job!"
 
Open to students in grades 6-12 

Submission Deadline: Friday October 28, 2016, 5:00 p.m.
Winning posters will receive $100 and artwork will appear on the tails of local transit buses around the county! 
Have your students enter today!   
 
Learn more by viewing the Contest Flyer here (pdf)
Upcoming Webinars
Thursday, November 1, 2016:  
Attendance Awareness All Year Long: 
Reviewing and Sustaining Progress, 11-12:30 pm.
After Attendance Awareness Month is over, how can schools and communities reach out to families and students to encourage good attendance all year long? Join Attendance Works and our special guests as they share:
  • How to use attendance data to anticipate and counter dips in daily attendance that routinely occur over the course of the school year
  • Ideas for leveraging the success of Attendance Awareness Month throughout the year
  • Strategies for engaging families and students whose absences are adding up
  • Free resources for messaging all year long about the importance of attendance
Speakers:
  1. Hedy Chang, Executive Director, Attendance Works
  2. Cecelia Leong Associate Director of Programs, Attendance Works
  3. Kim Nauer, The New School, Education Research Director, Center for New York City Affairs and Insideschools
  4. Brent Lynch, Director, Pupil Personnel. Jefferson County Public Schools. Louisville, KY.
Fill out the Principal's Honor Roll
2016 Every School Day Counts
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Princi pal Honor Roll

Once again, the CCCOE is poised to recognize the incredibly important work that principals are doing to raise awareness and address the issue of chronic absenteeism at their sites. Use this checklist as a reminder of the essential strategies that need to be accomplished at the beginning of the school year, and to learn about other strategies that can be used to improve attendance. In October you will have an opportunity to tell us what you have effectively implemented at your school site and be recognized on the 2016-17 Principal Honor Roll.

We look forward to hearing about creative and effective strategies used to improve attendance.

Fill out the survey here!