Attendance Awareness Month: Resources for Making Attendance a Priority

September represents more than just the month of getting used to being back in school, it's also Attendance Awareness Month. Make sure to make attendance a priority for your students, children, and even yourself using these tips for the upcoming school year.

School-Wide Efforts to Keep Attendance Up

Many schools across the nation have chosen some great ways to get kids excited about the school year during this first month of school—and hope the endeavors will help raise awareness about the importance of attendance.

For instance, in one Dallas high school, according to U.S.News, judges, lawyers, bankers, and many more dressed in their professional attire and got together to welcome back the school's students, giving them some early inspiration and focus.

Other schools welcomed students back to school with music, some choosing to use the boisterous performance of the school marching band while others chose to welcome artists championing the importance of attendance in education as was the case with Paterson, New Jersey's public schools inviting Fetty Wap to perform.

Read more about examples of school-wide efforts here. 

Using Social Media to Raise Awareness

Social media is one of the best ways to connect to others through a global platform, and Attendance Works has compiled a resource to help you spread the word about Attendance Awareness Month on social media channels.

Attendance Works has a Facebook Cover Photo, several informative memes, and even numerous sample posts and statistics available to help spread the word about the importance of attendance.

The resource even includes sample Tweets and Facebook posts to help you connect to others and encourage them to join the cause by using the hashtag #SchoolEveryDay. An example of a sample tweet:

7.5 million students miss 10% of school year nationwide. That’s 135 million days total. http://awareness.attendanceworks.org/ #SchoolEveryDay [TWEET THIS]

Use Attendance Works' Social Media Graphics here. 

Dress for Attendance Success & Stay Organized

In order to feel the part, look the part! For the month of September, use these ideas from Pinterest to inspire attendance through simple yet clever decorating ideas for the classroom.

For younger classrooms:

Whooooo's Here today? An easy and cute bulletin board for your elementary school classroom, this bulletin board allows for you to keep track of your class in a fun and routine manner. Kids will like interacting with the board, that's for sure. 

Check it out here. 

For parents:

Just so you're aware of how attendance affects your kids, GetSchooled.com provides parents with a great resource that reminds them just how important attendance is.

It lets you see the change in graduation rates and average reading and math percentiles for high school and middle school students as absences respectively pile up. For instance, if a middle school child misses 16 days of school, he or she's likelihood of graduating decreasing to 67% and his or her reading percentile is 36 percent and math percentile 37.

Check it out here. 

For parents & teachers:

Attendanceworks.org has a free resource for educators that is sure to come in handy when communicating with parents.

Deeming it a "two-generation program," parents and children are aware of the child's attendance record thanks to the teacher's "Perfectly Punctual Scorecard."

Read more about the strategy behind the punctual scorecard and how to download the scorecard for use in your classroom here. 

Compiled by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

09/09/2015