The California legislature has declared September “School Attendance Awareness Month,” in an effort to urge families, communities, and schools to prioritize student attendance and to underscore the direct connection between attendance and academic achievement. Managing editor Tami Roleff says the state is involved in a national initiative to reduce chronic absenteeism in schools…
California kids are back in school, and now, the goal is to keep them going back. State Assembly member Shirley Weber, who authored the School Attendance Awareness Month resolution, says the first step is showing up. “So we’ve got to basically say to parents and kids that attendance is important. That is something you can do, and having your child ready and available to go to school is extremely important.” Weber says the state’s estimated 250,000 chronically absent students struggle when they are in the classroom. “And those students, when we track them, we discover that they’re also the same children who have issues with behavior, they have issues with academic excellence. They become the ones suspended, expelled, and eventually, who drop out of school.” She says everyone needs to help reduce chronic absenteeism. “As we ask for teachers to do more and schools to do more, that every parent and every family in every community ought to do more, to make sure that every child is in school every day, and ready to learn.” State Superintendent Tom Torlakson says California schools can have the best facilities, materials, and teachers in the world, but no school can reach a child who simply isn’t there.
SCHOOL ATTENDANCE MONTH IN CALIFORNIA
