Attendance Works

Attendance Works began in 2006 when Annie E. Casey Foundation executive Ralph Smith asked Hedy Chang — an expert in family support, family economic success, education, and child development — to examine whether missing too much school was a reason why so few under-resourced children were reading proficiently by the end of third grade. Chang's research found that chronically absent students — those who miss at least 10 percent of schooldays in an academic year — have poorer academic outcomes than students who attend school regularly.

With initial funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Chang established Attendance Works in 2010 as a national initiative and coined the term "chronic absence" to differentiate it from truancy and to account for all absences. With the problem defined, Attendance Works galvanized local communities, school districts, teachers, and policymakers to collect and analyze attendance data,. The initiative then encouraged these stakeholders to use this information to forge partnerships with families, civic organizations, and public agencies so they could address common barriers to getting to school as well as nurture a community-wide culture of daily school attendance. Offering support to K-12 schools nationwide, Attendance Works has expanded to address chronic absence starting in preschool.