School Attendance Matters and You Can Help

Dubuque's Campaign for Grade-Level Reading in September turned its attention from summer learning to school attendance.

What's wrong with missing a few days of school? Study after study on this question tells us children who miss more than 10 percent of the school year see dramatic decreases in learning.

For example, a study of 640 children in California found only 17 percent of students chronically absent in kindergarten and first grade were reading at grade level by third grade -- compared to 64 percent who attended regularly.

This reminds me of a college professor who told us "80 percent of life is showing up. " This may not always be true, but in the case of young people learning to read in school, it certainly is.

So, what can we do to make sure all of our children get to school on time? Here are a few things we know can work, thanks to research done by the organization Attendance Works. (www.attendanceworks.org)

* Pay attention to the data. Schools can track attendance data with an eye on how many students are missing too many days, not just how many show up every day. They can find patterns among students and compare them to times of the week or year. In Dubuque our schools have adopted these strategies -- attendance data is gathered and used to identify at-risk children and their families.

* Educate parents about what children learn and why attendance matters. By making sure parents understand what children are learning, we can help them recognize their responsibility for ensuring regular attendance. During September, Attendance Awareness Month, parents in Dubuque were provided information about the importance of being in school.

* Make children part of the solution. Incentives and games can help encourage children to show up. Exercises called social stories written by children who are frequently absent help them identify ideas to help them make it to school.

* Increase access to health resources. Especially among young children, health concerns lead to absences. Asthma accounts for an estimated 12.3 million absences nationally each year. Dental problems, colds, and even head lice and separation anxiety can also keep children home. In Dubuque, our schools have a program that is working to address health-related absences.

We all play a role in supporting school attendance. It has been proven that when children learn good attendance habits, those habits last into adulthood and into their careers.

Parents and schools need to ensure we teach those good habits. Employers can help by offering flexibility for parents who may need to drop off their children in the morning. Health care providers can offer flexible scheduling after school and on Saturdays to keep kids from missing school for appointments.

You can help by talking to the children in your life about good school attendance. Focusing on attendance, is one way Dubuque's Campaign for Grade-Level Reading is helping to make sure that all of our children read at grade level by the end of third grade. Find out more at www.dbqfoundation.org/initiatives.

Eric Dregne is vice president of strategic initiatives for the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque. This article appeared on the opinion page of the Telegraph Herald on October 17, 2013.