We know that most parents want the best for their children. So how can we persuade them that school attendance, starting in the early grades, is critical to their children’s later success?
The Ad Council decided to explore some common misperceptions in a set of focus groups and interviews with parents. The council and the U.S. Army have recently adopted attendance as a key issue in the BoostUp dropout prevention campaign they are sponsoring. They set up focus groups with parents of students who missed 10 or more days of school . The interviews focused on parents with children in fourth through ninth grade, particularly those from low-income and minority families. They were conducted interviews in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles.