Spring

Welcome starts with registration!

Site-based opportunities

• Incorporate attendance messages into registration materials
• Include attendance awareness in open house activities
• Provide friendly health-related materials to parents
• Give children playful, hands-on attendance materials

District-level supports

• Convene elementary and preschool leadership to focus on kindergarten attendance
• Plan a community-wide attendance messaging campaign for families with young children
• Enlist community partners to support the attendance work

Summer

Preparation intensifies

Site-based opportunities

• Discuss chronic absence prevention during staff orientation
• Create an attendance team
• Recruit volunteers to play a friendly attendance mascot
• Plan year-round calendar of attendance celebrations

District-level supports

• Offer transition program for students without preschool experience
• Include chronic absence prevention materials in professional development
• Develop recognition activities and incentive programs for improved attendance
• Participate in the Attendance Works national Attendance Awareness Campaign

Fall

Welcome activities abound

Site-based opportunities

• Send each kindergarten family a welcome letter with attendance message
• Conduct relational home visits
• Integrate attendance activities or videos into family orientation events
• Engage students in monitoring their own attendance
• Analyze first month’s attendance data to identify children and families in need of extra support
• Launch recognition and incentive activities
• Plan special back-to-school event for the first day after winter break

District-level supports

• Sustain or expand attendance messaging
• Analyze chronic absence data by grade and share results with sites or schools
• Use data to identify problematic patterns and develop solutions
• Plan additional professional development
• Work with community partners to provide incentives for good or improved attendance

Winter

A fresh opportunity to succeed!

Site-based opportunities

• Launch the new year with a day that children won’t want to miss
• Create friendly attendance competition among classrooms
• Offer playful “make and take home” parent or family attendance activities
• Use attendance data to problem solve with families
• Talk with families about improved attendance to celebrate progress

District-level supports

• Reach out to preschools and community partners to plan next year’s transition
• Gather site and community leadership to analyze progress
• Develop strategies and professional development that reflect data trends
• Expand public visibility of attendance with messaging on billboards or by hanging posters or banners