How Important is School Attendance?

As you are enjoying your summer, please think ahead about your child’s school attendance during the 2010-2011 school year. Will that 10-day vacation in February have a negative effect on your child’s education? Do all of those early checkouts and tardies cause your child to get behind? Poor attendance can truly cause your child to struggle academically.
The attendance rate is important because students are more likely to succeed in academics when they attend school consistently. It’s difficult for the teacher and the class to build their skills and progress if a large number of students are frequently absent. In addition to falling behind in academics, students who are not in school on a regular basis are more likely to get into trouble with the law and cause problems in their communities.
A 2008 study conducted by the Rodel Community Scholars at Arizona State University that tracked students from kindergarten through high school found that dropout patterns were linked with poor attendance, beginning in kindergarten. Gregory Hickman, director of the Rodel Community Scholars program and former director of the Arizona Dropout Initiative, notes they discovered that as early as kindergarten, behavioral differences are apparent between those who go on to graduate and those who drop out, with dropouts missing an average of 124 days by eighth grade.
School budgets suffer when students don’t attend. In North Carolina, school budgets are based on the average daily attendance at a school. If many students enrolled at a school fail to consistently attend, the school has less money to pay for essential classroom needs.

Advertisement