As the 2021-2022 school year gets underway, the I-KAN Regional Office of Education reminds the public that school attendance matters. Regular school attendance and student engagement lays the foundation for learning.

“Addressing chronic absence is the responsibility of not only parents, but the entire community. When we work together, we can find solutions to address the underlying causes of chronic student absences,” said I-KAN Regional Office of Education Superintendent Dr. Gregg Murphy.

The I-KAN Attendance Assistance Program (AAP)  helps students stay in and graduate from school by providing prevention and intervention services to students and their families. The program serves 19 school districts in Kankakee and Iroquois counties which includes approximately 24,000 kindergarten-12th grade students, 2,100 teachers and 60 building principals.

Supplemental services are provided through AAP and optional education through the Students All Learning Together (SALT) Program. The I-KAN Regional Office of Education also provides truancy prevention and intervention services. Find out more information here (link to the AAP web page).

The positive benefits of regular attendance (Provided by AttendanceWorks.org) 

1. Absenteeism in the first month of school can predict poor attendance throughout the school year. Half the students who miss two to four days in September go on to miss nearly a month of school.
2. More than eight million U.S. students miss nearly a month of school each year.
3. Absenteeism and its ill effects start early. One in 10 kindergarten and first grade students are chronically absent. 
4. Poor attendance can influence whether children read proficiently by the end of third grade or be held back. 
5. By 6th grade, chronic absence becomes a leading indicator that a student will drop out of high school. 
6. Research shows that missing 10 percent of the school, or about 18 school days, negatively affects a student’s academic performance. That’s just two days a month and that’s known as chronic absence. 
7. Students who live in communities with high levels of poverty are four times more likely to be chronically absent than others, often for reasons beyond their control, such as unstable housing, unreliable transportation and a lack of access to health care. 
8. When students improve their attendance rates, they improve their academic prospects and chances for graduating. 
9. Attendance improves when schools engage students and parents in positive ways and when schools provide mentors for chronically absent students. 
10. Most school districts and states don’t look at all the right data to improve school attendance. They track how many students show up every day and how many are skipping school without an excuse, but not how many are missing so many days in excused and unexcused absence that they are headed off track academically.

Attendance Awareness Month is September, but the campaign to end chronic absence starts now. Learn more about chronic absence and join the Attendance Awareness Campaign today at www.AttendanceWorks.org.