Attendance

This list contains resources to help providers address attendance issues.

The Illinois Attendance Commission was created within the Illinois State Board of Education to study the issue of chronic absenteeism in this State and make recommendations for strategies to prevent chronic absenteeism.

Every Student Counts, Every Day Matters is the official promotional video for the Illinois Commission (above) attendance awareness campaign.

The Every Student, Every Day toolkit is the national initiative to address and eliminate chronic absenteeism.

IEL Resources

• Tip Sheet: Get Them to School Every Day
• Tool Kit: Preschool Attendance Tool Kit
• Blog: How Teachers Can Help When a Child Says, “Mommy, I Don’t Want to Go to Preschool!”

Web Resources

• ERSEA: Encouraging and Supporting Regular Attendance
  This Head Start initiative explains the importance of regular attendance for 4-year-old children. It also provides questions for programs and teachers to consider while they try to improve attendance.
• Keep them coming: The road from enrollment to attendance
  During this archived webinar, presented by the Early Childhood Professional Learning at The Center, participants will learn more about the important changes that have occurred in Illinois regarding attendance in Pre/K (child care and districts). Participants will also receive resources to help them keep their students coming every day.
• Health Services to Promote Attendance
  This tip sheet developed by the National Center on Early Childhood Health and Wellness provides information about how programs can improve attendance by planning and evaluating health services and helping families learn how to keep children healthy, identify illness early, and get the right treatment quickly.
• What Makes and Attendance Incentive Program Successful?
  This blog on the Attendance Works website explains how the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is encouraging schools to address chronic absence. The blog article also describes a framework that uses incentives to promote attendance.
• Attendance in the Early Grades: Why It Matters for Reading
  Absences lead to children missing crucial instructional and educational experiences. This Attendance Works research brief discusses how attendance in the preschool years and later affects literacy skills.
• Pre-K Attendance – Why It’s Important and How to Support It
  The Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes (CEELO) explains that greater attendance in early childhood programs leads to better outcomes for children. The center discusses the roots of absenteeism and strategies for tackling it.
• Pre-K Attendance Is a Strong Indicator of Future Success
  This article by New America discusses an Urban Institute research report to highlight what schools can do to decrease absenteeism.
• One Way to Improve Kindergarten Attendance: Take the School Bus
  This EdSource article discusses why kindergarten attendance is crucial to later success in school. While many factors contribute to absenteeism, the school bus is one way attendance can be improved.
• Attendance Works Videos
  The Attendance Works website provides several videos about absenteeism and improving attendance.
• Family Handouts
  Available in a variety of languages, these handouts put together by Attendance Works help inform families about the importance of school attendance.
• Boosting Attendance In Preschool Can Start With A Knock On The Door
  Home visits at the beginning of the school year help create a relationship and open lines of communication between the school and family. In this broadcast on National Public Radio, Elissa Nadworny explains how home visits can help improve attendance.