Children First/CIS encourages students, parents and community to improve school attendance

Press release from Children First/Communities In Schools: 

Asheville, NC – Aug. 20, 2017 – Local nonprofit Children First/Communities In Schools (CIS) is encouraging students, parents and the community to help all students get to school on the first day and every day of the school year.

This call to action is part of a national campaign to help reduce chronic absenteeism in schools and raise awareness of the fact that good attendance is essential to academic success.

Students who miss two to four days in the first month of school are more likely to become chronically absent during the school year.

Chronic absenteeism is described as missing 10 percent of the school year—or about 18 days – for any reason, excused or unexcused. Research shows that this is the point at which absenteeism begins to affect student performance.

Nationally, 5 million to 7.5 million miss nearly a month of school in excused and unexcused absences every year. Starting as early as kindergarten or even preschool, chronic absence predicts lower 3rd grade reading scores. By middle school it’s a warning sign that students will fail key classes and drop out of high school.

“We know that we will never narrow the achievement gap until we bring this problem under control, and that means starting early in elementary school,” says Children First/CIS executive director, Allison Jordan. “All our efforts to improve grades won’t matter much if students are not in school.”

In order to help alleviate chronic absenteeism and other factors that can interfere with student success, Children First/CIS provides a Student Support Specialist in 5 local schools: Emma Elementary, Estes Elementary, Claxton Elementary, Johnston Elementary and Eblen Intermediate. These schools have a high number of students who receive free and reduced meals- a leading poverty indicator. Student Support Specialists provide integrated student supports for the most at-risk students as well as school wide services for the entire population. Student Support Specialists work with a team of school personnel to improve attendance, behavior, coursework and parent engagement- key factors in increasing school success and graduation rates. These supports can range from making sure the family is signed up for food and health programs, providing academic assistance, to helping secure housing by partnering with other local agencies.

“We know that at-risk students and children from low-income families can miss too much school because of chronic health problems, unreliable transportation or unstable housing,” said Jordan. “That’s why we bring community supports directly into the schools to address these problems so that students can stay in school and achieve in life.”

As part of the campaign, Children First/CIS will also mark Attendance Awareness Month in September. Schools, city agencies, community nonprofits, faith-based groups, businesses and others around the nation will be committing time and resources to raise public awareness, map local attendance gaps and work with community partners to improve school attendance starting as soon as children enter school.