Attendance Counts Launches Website
Monday, June 14, 2010
By: Phyllis Jordan

Nationwide, one in 10 kindergarten and 1st grade students misses a month of school each year. Attendance Counts, a national and state initiative working to reducing chronic absence, launches attendancecounts.org today with news, research and solutions.

Attendance Counts launches its new website, AttendanceCounts.org,, to help schools and communities learn how they can combat chronic absence and make sure more children are attending school regularly.
Nationwide, one in 10 kindergarten and 1st grade students misses the equivalent of a month of school each year. The recent KIDS COUNT report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation identified chronic absence as one of the reasons children are not learning to read well by the end of 3rd grade, contributing to the nation's achievement gap and its high dropout rates.
While chronic absence rates are higher and more intractable in secondary school, it is crucial to start addressing the problem among our youngest students and then continue emphasizing the importance of attendance throughout their school careers.