“Is it good to tell a first-grader, ‘You might be a dropout?’”

The obvious answer would seem to be: Uh, no. But when Thomas C. West posed this question recently to Education Week reporter Sarah D. Sparks, he had a genuine dilemma in mind. West, who is an evaluation specialist at Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, has devised a tracking formula that can predict, with startling accuracy, which students will drop out of high school—as early as their second semester of first grade.

via What Are the Risks in Using Data to Predict Student Outcome? | MindShift.

If you are planning activities for Attendance Awareness Month this September, check out our updated Count Us In! Toolkit. We have added even more resources, tools and templates to help you celebrate Attendance Awareness Month and raise awareness about the importance of going to school every day.

via Count Us In! Toolkit 2.0 « Attendance Works.

We’re hearing great things from communities across the country about what they’re doing to mark September as Attendance Awareness Month. The Salt Lake City area already has secured a public service announcement from Utah Gov. Gary Herbert. Del Ray Beach, Florida, is working with a local arts school on a jingle for their “Rise ‘N Shine” campaign and coordinating with the local Chamber of Commerce to give mini-grants to schools for attendance incentives. Grand Rapids, Mich. and Palm Beach, Florida are planning forums on attendance. You can read all about it on the Attendance Awareness Month map.

via In Attendance Awareness Month, Don’t Forget Your Superintendent! « Attendance Works.

Attendance Works is now offering a more powerful version of our K-5 District Attendance Tracking Tool (DATT). In response to requests from many communities, the new version of the K-5 DATT generates reports showing chronic absence patterns by zip code and by gender and ethnicity combined.

via More powerful version of K-5 DATT now available! « Attendance Works.

At Castle Park Middle School in Chula Vista, Calif., where attendance is king, Principal Bobby Bleisch has taken a school that just two years ago recorded the lowest attendance rate in the school district to a school that now has the highest attendance rate in the district’s history.

With a 99 percent attendance rate, Castle Park’s teachers and students are building a record of academic excellence, dramatically increasing math and science proficiency scores and reducing behavior issues.

via In Chula Vista, doubling down on attendance and doubling up on academic gains « Attendance Works.

Legislatures in several states approved measures this spring aimed at tracking chronic absenteeism, intervening with at-risk students and improving attendance rates.

• Indiana now requires educators to address absenteeism in school improvement plans and adds chronic absence to school data reports.
• Illinois established a task force to examine “issues regarding truancy and excessive absences” and identify strategies to improve attendance. The legislation was inspired by a series of stories in the Chicago Tribune.
• California is including chronic absence as one of eight priorities for accountability in its new school funding formula, which allows more local control and adds funds for high-needs students to take into account the higher costs of educating them.

State legislative action targets chronic absence « Attendance Works.

Today is Summer Learning Day, and many of the communities and partners working on Attendance Awareness Month are also providing great summer learning opportunities. Both of these issues are priorities for the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, which is working in 134 communities across the country to increase the number of low-income children reading well by the end of third grade. And both issues are animated by the same imperative: Low-income children benefit from more time on task. Just as we need to ensure that these students get the benefit of every school day possible, we need to make sure they have more time to keep learning through the summer.

Summer Learning & Attendance « Attendance Works.

by Hedy Chang

The headlines out of Texas this week have been about the strict truancy policies in Dallas: Critics say students as young as 12 are being marched out of class in handcuffs and charged with crimes for missing school or even being late to class. Interest groups filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday.

But a day early, a group of advocates and educators in central Texas came together to pursue an entirely different approach to improving school attendance. About 200 education, business and community leaders gathered in Austin to learn the results of a study of why absences occur, where they are concentrated and what can be done to reduce them.

Attendance Works.

by Hedy Chang

With the school year winding down, it’s a great time to begin planning your activites and events for Attendance Awareness Month. But how do you get started?

On our webinar today, Must be Present to Win, we outlined a strategy for bringing stakeholders–educators, business leaders, community nonprofits, faith-based groups, social workers and volunteers–together in one room to talk about what approaches your school or community wants to pursue. We’re calling them “House Parties,” which in common parlance means an event that gathers potential supporters for a campaign or cause. In this case the cause is attendance awareness, and the goal is mobilizing the entire community.

via Plan a House Party, Post it on the Map.

by Hedy Chang

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.

via New Toolkit: Parent Engagement and Attendance.

by Hedy Chang

Join us at 1-2:15 p.m. Eastern, 10-11:15 a.m. Pacific:

Children who go to school every day are winners. They benefit by learning more and developing the habit of regular attendance that will help them succeed when they go to work. Yet, across the country, as many as 7.5 million school-age children were chronically absent.

via June 7 Webinar: How Local Communities Can Encourage Student Attendance in September.

by Hedy Chang

The first time Chicago Tribune reporter David Jackson requested information on attendance in Chicago Public Schools was 1999. He had talked to a juvenile court judge who told him about the surprisingly high truancy rates among young offenders. Jackson filed a Freedom of Information request with the school district, but it was denied on privacy grounds, even though he asked that names be redacted. The case went to court, which upheld the district’s decision.

via Reporting on Absenteeism Wins Top Prizes.

by Lillian Mongeau

California Attorney General Kamala Harris launched a new focus on truancy as a statewide law enforcement issue with a letter that went to all of the state’s county and district superintendents last week.

“California is facing an alarming truancy problem,” Harris wrote in the letter. “Over 1.8 million students, almost 30 percent of the state’s student body, were truant in California in the 2010-11 school year.”

via Attorney general calls on schools to fight state’s 30 percent truancy rate – by Lillian Mongeau.