Attendance Awareness Month Update
  May 3, 2017 
Planning for Attendance Awareness Month Begins Now!
 
We're celebrating the fifth Attendance Awareness Month Campaign this year and focusing on how engagement with students and families is key to improving attendance. Be sure to view the updated web-based Count Us In! toolkit, download new 2017 badges  and find tips and resources for your campaign. Last year over 500 communities posted activities on the Attendance Action Map. Join with us and more than 60 national partners working to expand on that success and bring more communities into our movement by signing up for updates.
 
This year's webinar series focuses on taking a tiered approach to improve attendance. Our next free webinar, It Takes Two:  Adding Early Intervention Strategies to Address Chronic Absence, is on Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 2:00 pm ET.   Register here.  We need your help to get the word out! Send this description to colleagues, insert it in newsletters, or share our social media messages (below) about the webinar.
Share Your Story!
 
We're looking for Attendance Awareness Month stories that show how you engaged people in your community around school attendance. Send us your photos, videos, and stories using this form for a chance to be featured on the Attendance Awareness Month website or in the AAM newsletter.
Research Spotlight
 
Taking the school bus could potentially reduce the number of US public school kindergartners who are chronically absent by almost 50,000, according to an analysis by Michael A. Gottfried, University of California, Santa Barbara. The study, published by the American Educational Research Association (AERA), is the first to examine a connection between taking the school bus and chronic absence. The findings should give educators pause as districts consider cutting back bus services, Gottfried says. 


New Tools

The National Student Attendance, Engagement, and Success Center (NSAESC) is sponsoring a series of webinars to share practices around early warning systems that identify students who are missing too much school. You'll also hear strategies to support the Success Mentor initiatives underway in the 30 My Brother's Keepers cities.  Read our blog, and register here for the webinars.

Community Spotlight
 
In communities across the country-from Stockton, CA to Des Moines, IA-from Delray FL to Hartford CT, we are seeing communities working together to reduce chronic absenteeism and increase 3rd grade reading proficiency. The Campaign for Grade Level Reading has selected 48 "Pacesetter" communities for actions that address attendance, school readiness and summer learning. Find out more!

New Partner

We welcome the Institute for Educational Leadership  (IEL) to the 2017 Attendance Awareness Campaign as one of ten convening partners. IEL has been at the forefront of innovative efforts that bring together leaders across the various sectors of education (P-20), workforce development and systems that serve children and youth. IEL's annual National Family and Community Engagement conference  includes sessions for teachers on effective messaging and everyday strategies to address chronic absence.

Help us spread the word!


  • Join AAC2017 webinar: It Takes Two! Adding Early Intervention Strategies, 5/23 Hear strategies for #SchoolEveryDay:http://bit.ly/2ovkVyD

  • Join the May 23 AAM webinar & learn how teachers mentors nurses & caring adults can improve Ss attendance Register http://bit.ly/1edLIpP


  • What are the key steps to take to encourage students to be in school every day?  Join the Attendance Awareness Month webinar, It Takes Two! Adding Early Intervention Strategies on 5/23 to hear what teachers, mentors, school nurses and other caring adults can do. The webinar will provide tips for early outreach and intervention. Register Now! http://bit.ly/1edLIpP

  • Attendance Awareness Month is September, but the campaign to end chronic absence starts now! It's a bigger problem than you probably think. Learn more about chronic absence and join the Attendance Awareness Campaign today! http://bit.ly/1oqfID7


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