Our first Attendance Awareness Campaign webinar, Keep Kids Engaged and Showing Up for Learning: Relationships, Routines and Partnerships, (April 6, 2022), highlighted the importance of community involvement and relationship building for improving student engagement and attendance. The webinar featured community a district educator and expanded learning providers whose organizations have taken innovative steps to build positive relationships between schools and students.
Listen to the webinar recording, and find the presentation slides and chat room summary when you scroll down on this page.
Moderators Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, and Kwesi Rollins, vice president for Leadership & Engagement at the Institute of Educational Leadership (IEL), kicked off the session. Kwesi presented an overview of the key pieces of this year’s Attendance Awareness Campaign. Hedy followed with an overview of the most recent attendance data and survey results. The substantial increase in chronic absenteeism and learning loss during remote learning has negatively impacted students across all grade levels, with disproportionate impacts on low-income students, English language learners, students of color and students with disabilities.
Lorri Hobson, director of Attendance for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, reviewed the district’s current metrics and factors affecting student attendance. She presented CMSD’s student-centered solution to addressing learning loss and building stronger relationships between students and the administration. Christina Sepulveda, vice president at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Garden Grove, shared an overview of the ways the organization utilizes partnership to better understand the challenges their students face.
Aaron Philip Dworkin, chief executive officer for the National Summer Learning Association, discussed NSLA’s Summer Learning program and their commitment to offering marginalized students valuable opportunities for leadership and skill development through experiential learning. He offered a variety of resources to help educators create summer learning programs, including National Summer Learning Week , July 11-15, 2022.
The speakers emphasized that students and families are still experiencing challenges related to the pandemic. All three noted that reinvesting in relationships, both in and out of the classroom, are central for creating the positive conditions for learning that promote engagement and motivate attendance.
Many, many thanks to RaaWee K-12 Solutions for its generous support of the 2022 Attendance Awareness Campaign and this webinar. We could not have held this event without their support!
Find the webinar recording when you scroll down on this page.