Tips for Parents to Promote Good Attendance:
Let your child know that good attendance is important
- Reward your child for already good or improved attendance.
- Only schedule doctor and dentist appointments after school.
- Schedule vacations to coincide with school holidays and longer school breaks.
Allow no excuses
- If your child complains of minor headaches, stomach aches, or other pains, consider consulting with your doctor, but send them to school. If a minor ailment would not prevent you from going to work, then it should not prevent your child from going to school.
Establish routines
- Set a reasonable bedtime and create a comforting evening routine.
- Use an alarm clock and create a morning routine as well. Set the alarm for 30 minutes earlier than actually necessary to allow for any unforeseen morning delays.
- Plan ahead the night before. For example, pre-plan breakfast; choose clothes and shoes to be worn to school; and pack student backpacks with completed homework, nonperishable snacks, and water.
- Reserve school nights for homework and limit the use of TV or other electronic devices.
Show interest in your child's activities
- Make education a family priority.
- Encourage your child to reasonably participate in school sports, clubs, or other after-school activities.
Keep open lines of communication with your child, teacher, principal, and school attendance office
- Let the school know in advance if your child is going to be absent or you have concerns about your child's attendance.
- Attend all parent conferences, parent classes, back-to-school, and open house activities.
- Reach out to the school if you have concerns about your child’s academic, behavioral, social, or emotional well-being.
- Provide a doctor's notes to the school office when medical verification is available for student's absences.
- If your child does not want to go to school, find out why and work with your school and child to address concerns. Your child’s safety and well-being are a very high priority!
- If you notice your child avoiding or having a difficult time in a particular subject area, discuss it with your child and his/her teacher. Offer extra support at home. This will prevent your child from developing a behavior of avoidance in school when things become difficult.
- Get to know your children's friends and their families. Make connections with other families that value school attendance.
- Check your child's backpack at least weekly. Occasionally, important letters or notices can become lost in a full backpack. Organizing its contents regularly improves your chances of finding these documents while they are still useful.
- Keep a school year calendar. This is an excellent way to track all of the important dates, holidays, and events at your child's school. It’s also a convenient place to document absences (who was absent, why and how you cleared it, the date cleared), phone calls/conferences with school staff, and all of your other important school related information.