Parent and family engagement is a crucial to any effective, comprehensive approach to reducing chronic absence. Parents, especially in the early grades, play a key role in making sure their children get to school on time every day. But too many parents don’t realize how quickly absences — excused and unexcused — translate into academic trouble. “Even though I went to college, I didn’t know that missing 18 days or just two days a month—even in kindergarten—could put my son behind academically,” explained one California parent, Olga Nunez.