VIRGINIA – A new report from the Department of Education shows that chronic absenteeism is down, and local districts are crediting the success to a variety of initiatives.
Chronic absenteeism means students are absent more than 10% of the school year. In Virginia, that’s about 18 days.
“When children are in school all the time, on time, then they have a better chance of succeeding and performing at a higher level,” Pulaski County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Graham said.
Each school has its own method for combating the problem that grew during the pandemic.
“We still are using the flexible tutoring initiative that we have where if a student does tutoring with one of our licensed teachers, another licensed teacher before or after school, we get to count that towards attendance for our division,” Graham said.
Roanoke County superintendent Dr. Ken Nicely said parents play an important role in encouraging good attendance.
“Building relationships and also building awareness,” Nicely said. “We want to make sure that parents know the importance of having their children in schools. I know we did a big campaign last year called ‘Show up for Success.’”