Promoting
Attendance

Best
Practice

Programs can "set the stage" by talking about the importance of regular attendance at the time of enrollment & throughout the program year. 

Staff can work directly with families to identify barriers & develop strategies to improve attendance.

Promoting Attendance

Provide Information About the Benefits of Regular Attendance

Regular attendance is expected & every effort must be made to support families in getting their child to school daily & on time.

At a minimum, programs should provide information about the benefits of attendance, but may provide additional materials such as:

• Attendanceworks.org - Provides specific materials for preschoolers to help children succeed in preschool

• Challengingbehavior.org - Provides a downloadable backpack connection with supportive strategies to promote attendance

What this might look like in a program:

• Benefits of Regular Attendance Flyer is shared with parents upon enrollment & at annual orientation to provide information about the benefits of regular attendance

• Backpack Connection Series that provides specific strategies to address areas, such as how to help your child have a successful morning or bedtime are shared with families

Support Families to Promote Regular Attendance

Programs should support families to promote the child’s regular attendance. This may include asking parents what makes it hard to get their child to school or what support may be needed to reduce the level of absence.

Help parents understand that absences, even if excused, can harm their child’s ability to learn & succeed in school. Let parents know that program staff want to help support them with overcoming barriers.

What this might look like in a program

• Conduct Parent Cafes & hold open discussions on hurdles parents are experiencing & talk through supportive strategies the program can provide to reduce absences.

Make Direct Contact

Another strategy to promote attendance includes making direct contact with a child’s parents. This may be done in a variety of ways, but the most common is a home visit.

What this might look like in a program:

Program staff conduct a home visit to discuss how the program can support the family in bringing the child to school regularly.

Track Attendance

Programs should have a system to track attendance & use individual child attendance data to identify children with patterns of absence that put them at risk of missing ten percent of program days per year.

The Child Attendance Success Plan may be useful in working with families to provide strategies to reach their child’s attendance goals.

What this might look like in a program

• Agency tracks attendance & the family is contacted through a phone call &/or home visit when their child is not attending care as certified or has excessive absences.

  • Child Attendance Success Plan is developed in collaboration with parent

  • Progress is reviewed in one month

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