Attendance - Critical to Student Success
Preventing Missed Opportunity
To clarify the following attendance terms...
- Average Daily Attendance – The % of enrolled students who attend school each day. It can be used in some states for allocating funding.
- Truancy – refers only to unexcused absences. It signals the potential need for legal intervention under state compulsory education laws.
- Chronic Absence – missing 10% or more of school for any reason – excused, unexcused, etc. It is an indication that a student is academically at risk due to missing too much school starting in Kindergarten. To put this in perspective, chronic absences in a quarter would begin around 4 days.
Chronic absenteeism is a red alert that students are headed for academic trouble and eventually for dropping out of high school. Poor attendance isn’t just a problem for high school. It can start as early as kindergarten and pre-kindergarten.
What is the impact of Chronic Absences?
Going to school every day reflects…
- Hope for a better future
- Faith that school will help your child succeed
- Capacity such as resources, skills, and knowledge needed to get to school
KEY MESSAGES
- Good attendance helps children do well in school and eventually in the work place.
- Absences add up. Excused and unexcused absences result in too much time lost in the classroom – lost learning opportunities.
- Chronic absence, missing 10 percent of the school year or more, affects the whole classroom, not just the students who miss school.
- We need to monitor how many days each student misses school for any reason – excused, unexcused or suspensions – so we can intervene early.
- Chronic absence is a problem we can solve when the whole community, including parents and schools, gets involved.
- Reducing chronic absence can help close achievement gaps.
Tips for Parents to Help Student Success
