Teachers know first hand that too many absences can disrupt learning, not just for the absent student but for the entire classroom. To help teachers build a culture of attendance and maintain it throughout the school year, Attendance Works has created a teacher toolkit with strategies to emphasize attendance from Day One, use parent teacher conference to talk about attendance, and promote a culture of attendance all year long.
The Attendance Imperative
Attending school regularly is essential to students gaining the academic and social skills they need to succeed. Reducing absenteeism is a simple, cost-effective, but often overlooked strategy for improving academic performance.
Chronic absence can be significantly reduced when schools, families and community partners work together to monitor data, nurture a habit of regular attendance and address hurdles that keep children from getting to school every day such as lack of access to health care, unhealthy environmental conditions, unreliable transportation, housing instability or the lack of safe paths to school .
