From the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading and Attendance Works:
Data from several states — Connecticut, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia and California — suggest that by the end of the 2021–22 school year, chronic absenteeism had doubled from before the pandemic. Attendance Works estimates that it now affects as many as one out of three students! This alarming increase in chronic absence contributes to the growing gaps between the highest and the lowest achieving students. A critical strategy for reducing growing educational inequities is forging and expanding partnerships with public housing agencies and leveraging their capacity to connect economically challenged children and families with needed support and resources.
Please join the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading and Attendance Works on October 18, from 3−4:30 p.m. ET, as Attendance Works Executive Director Hedy Chang moderates a conversation exploring how housing agencies can partner with schools and families to promote regular attendance routines, engagement in learning and showing up to in-person as well as virtual instruction. We will hear about strategies used by housing agencies to partner with families to keep students excited about learning and attending school, as well as ways to ensure equitable access to online learning opportunities. The session will also explore how sharing data can inform action and what helps to facilitate this important cross-sector collaboration.
- Presenters: Maria Casey, Attendance Works; Dawn Gerundo, Valley of the Sun United Way, Arizona; and Emily Mancini-Fitch, Portland Housing Authority, Maine.
- Discussant: Angie Garcia-Nguyen, Santa Clara County Housing Authority, California.
- Moderator: Hedy Chang, Attendance Works.