What’s the single most important word a student can say every day to boost achievement?

 Here.

These are the first lines of a blog by Scholastic Publisher Karen Baicker exploring the impact of chronic absenteeism and looking at solutions.

The blog is the first of a two-part series posted in recognition of Attendance Awareness Month. The blog features an interview with Hedy Chang of Attendance Works, who shares her perspective on how families, teachers, and districts can be part of that solution.

The post highlights the U.S. Department of Education’s first national data on chronic absence, released in June, and the 2016 report, Preventing Missed Opportunity: Taking Collective Action to Confront Chronic Absence from Attendance Works and Everyone Graduates Center.

Both reports show that students in every state miss 15 or more days of school a year. That adds up to over 6.5 million students missing more than three weeks of school during a single school year. It’s enough time to chip away at academic achievement and threaten the chances of millions of students of graduating.

On the positive side, the post adds that chronic absence can be dramatically reduced when districts, families, and community partners collaborate using proven strategies. The interview with Hedy shows how these groups can work together to support students being in school every day possible.

Thank you Scholastic for celebrating Attendance Awareness Month!

Find the full blog post here.