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Absences Add Up: Why We’re Helping Parents Get Their Kids to School Every Day
Most of us know that school attendance is important—after all, we want our kids to have the best possible chance of doing well in school, graduating from high school, and going on to find success in college or the job market. But most parents also know that getting their kids to school every day isn’t always easy. Kids get sick or they worry about facing bullies. Sometimes kids miss school because their families are struggling or because they feel unprepared.
What most parents may not know is that as early as elementary school, missing just 2 days of school per month—whether the absences are excused or unexcused—makes kids more likely to fall behind in school, and less likely to graduate from high school. Students are chronically absent if they miss an average of just 2 school days per month. When these absences add up, students who miss just 2 days of school each month, end up missing 18 school days, or 10% of the school days in a year.
Five to seven and a half million children in the US are chronically absent each year. To help address this problem, the Department of Education, the Mott Foundation, and the Ad Council have partnered to create the Absences Add Up campaign. The goal of the campaign is to educate parents about the importance of school attendance, and provide them with resources and tips to help get their kids to school every day.
The new PSA campaign is part of Every Student, Every Day: A National Initiative to Address and Eliminate Chronic Absenteeism, which is a national initiative to address and eliminate chronic absenteeism, spearheaded by the Obama Administration. Led by the White House My Brother’s Keeper Task Force, U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Justice, the effort calls on states and local communities across the country to join in taking immediate action to address and eliminate chronic absenteeism.
When a child is absent for any reason, it becomes harder for them to succeed in school—and in life. Families can visit AbsencesAddUp.org to find resources and tips that can help them through many challenges, whether their child isn’t feeling well, their family is struggling with housing, or anything in between. Together, we can help our kids stay on the path to successful futures.