How to Improve School Attendance

Step-by-Step Guide

1. 1

   Step 1: Keep parents and guardians informed.

   Alert them whenever their child is absent in case the child has skipped school without them knowing.
   
   Continue to alert them about each repeated instance.
   
   Also keep them abreast of any developing patterns in their child’s absenteeism and/or any problems resulting it from it, whether or not the parents/guardians have excused their child's absence.Patterns to look out for include: missing school just before or after vacations and/or weekends; leaving for family vacations while school is in normal session; missing full or half-days for non-emergency appointments with doctors, dentists, or other offices.Ask parents/guardians to meet with teachers and staff to address chronic absences.
   
   This is especially important if they are allowing or even responsible for those absences.
   
   Explain the disadvantages that this places on their child.
2. 2

   Step 2: Offer prizes.

   Give students incentive to show up with a rewards program.
   
   Create tiers of acceptable numbers of absences per year, semester, marking period, and/or month.
   
   Reward students who meet these tiers with appropriate prizes reflecting each tier.For example, say Tier 1 is up to two excused absences for the whole year, with a new laptop as a prize to each student who meets it.
   
   Tier 2 is three or four excused absences per year, with a $50 gift certificate to a local store as prize.
   
   Creating monthly prizes may be more productive than yearly prizes, since students won’t be discouraged to give up if they have an early setback. , Additionally, prevent the spread of communicable diseases, which may cause other students to miss school.
   
   If you do institute a rewards program, and if your school’s funding is dependent on attendance records, don’t make exceptions for health-related absences.
   
   Make it clear to students that all absences will be treated as the same.
   
   This way they won’t be tempted to take a “mental-health day” on top of everything else. , Keep in mind that the more school a student misses, the more trouble they will have in keeping up with their classmates.
   
   Counter this with an in-school and/or after-school program designed to address each student’s needs with hands-on help from staff.
   
   Ensure that your students won’t give up on lessons and then compound the problem by skipping more school or classes.Give at-risk students positive attention.
   
   Prove to them that the school is invested in their success.
   
   Review existing policies regarding punishment.
   
   Nix any disciplinary measures that involve the student missing more school or class-time, such as suspension, which just make a bad situation worse.
3. 3

   Step 3: Encourage sick students to stay home.Whether or not you institute a rewards program

4. 4

   Step 4: make it clear that students shouldn’t come to school when ill. Avoid pushing an individual student so hard that a 24-hour bug grows into a week long illness

5. 5

   Step 5: or worse.

6. 6

   Step 6: Offer extra help to chronically absent students.

Detailed Guide

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