Attendance Works

Attendance Works began in 2006 when Ralph Smith, the then Sr. Vice President of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, asked Hedy Nai-Lin Chang — a respected researcher and writer who studied family support, family economic success, education, and child development — to examine whether missing too much school in the early grades was a reason why so few low-income children were reading proficiently by the end of third grade. Chang's research found that chronically absent students—those who miss 10 percent of school in a single academic year—have poorer academic outcomes than students who attend school regularly and consistently. The study also revealed that one in 10 kindergarten and first grade students nationwide miss nearly a month of school every year.

By 2010, Chang realized the need to call national attention to this largely invisible but critical issue. With initial funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, she established Attendance Works as a national initiative and coined the term "chronic absence" to differentiate it from truancy and to account for all absences, including excused and unexcused absences as well as days missed from suspension. With the problem defined and named, Attendance Works began galvanizing local communities, school districts, teachers, and policymakers to collect and analyze attendance data. The organization then engaged these stakeholders to use this information to forge partnerships with families, civic organizations, and public agencies so they could collaboratively unpack and address common barriers to getting to school as well as nurture a community-wide culture of daily school attendance.

Attendance Works now offers support to K-12 schools and it has expanded to address chronic absence starting in preschool. As a national leader, Attendance Works has brought the issue of chronic absence and its consequences to the attention of the federal government, states, and local communities.