Will you attend? America’s Promise Alliance, Attendance Works, the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, Everyone Graduates Center, Get Schooled, Healthy Schools Campaign, the Institute for Educational Leadership, Mentor, Points of Light and United Way Worldwide invite you to join us as we launch the fifth year of the Attendance Awareness Campaign, which designates September as Attendance Awareness Month.

Join us on March 28, 2017 at 11:00 am (Pacific) / 2:00 pm (Eastern) for a free webinar, Reducing Chronic Absence: It’s a Matter of 1, 2, 3! to officially launch the campaign and learn how to get involved! Hear how communities like Manatee and Sarasota, FL, and Allegheny County, PA took positive action on attendance and galvanized a broad coalition of civic leaders, educators, parents and youth.
Register here.

Special Note: We have had a record number of people registered already and are likely to exceed the webinar room capacity of 500! Please note that once you register you will receive the webinar recording, PowerPoint slides and other materials whether you attend or not. You might consider organizing a separate session to watch with a group using the recording and discussion guide. Guests are welcome to log in 15 minutes prior to the beginning of the webinar on March 28.

During the webinar we will also unveil the latest version of the “Count Us In!” toolkit, the essential resource to help you plan your Attendance Awareness Campaign involvement and enlist others to collaborate with you. The 2017 version contains new messaging and resources for making a difference in your community for Attendance Awareness Month.

The start of each school year presents an important opportunity to lift up an increasingly urgent issue: too many children missing too many days of school. Literally tens of thousands of children, even those in the early grades, are chronically absent — missing nearly a month or more of school every year.

Children who are chronically absent in kindergarten and first grade are much less likely to read proficiently by the end of third grade and are more likely to have poor attendance in later grades. By middle and high school, chronic absence is a proven early warning sign that a student will not graduate on time. This is especially true for those students living in poverty who need school the most and are sometimes attending the least. Chronic absence is a problem we can solve when schools, families and community partners work together.

Here’s how you can join the Attendance Awareness Campaign 2017!

• Register for the free webinar series
• Pin your activities to the Attendance Action Map
• Find resources in the Count Us In! Toolkit 2017
• Sign-up here to get regular updates