CIS National President Dan Cardinali recently sat down with Hedy Chang of Attendance Works, a national and state initiative that promotes better policy and practice regarding school attendance.
When Cardinali asked Chang what message she would convey to CIS' 2,000-plus Site Coordinators, she said, "When I reflect upon everything I know about reducing chronic absence, I think the two most essential ingredients for improving attendance are data and caring relationships. This understanding, drawn from what we see working across the country, is reflected in our newest toolkit, The Power of Positive Connections. It shares how schools and community partners can use absenteeism records from past years and from the first month of school to connect the most at-risk students to personal relationships and positive supports that motivate them to show up to class every day. It is a step-by-step guide to what we know works—reducing chronic absence through PEOPLE (Priority Early Outreach through Positive Linkages and Engagement). I hope all site coordinators will leverage this resource. I am thrilled by the growing partnership with Communities In Schools and the potential it offers for us to combine our respective assets, resources and knowledge to ensure children throughout the United States are in school."
Here are some of the findings from the group's key research:
• Nationally, an estimated 1 in 10 kindergarten and first grade students are chronically absent.
• Results from a sample of states suggest that an estimated 10-15 percent of students in the U.S. are chronically absent each year.
• A 2011 study of elementary school absenteeism found that schools may fail to detect high chronic absences because they are masked by average daily attendance, a common attendance measure.
A number of studies and resources on absenteeism are available on the Attendance Works website. To check them out for yourself, click here.
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