The Project Issue
Helping children learn to read proficiently takes more than books. A key reason many children in Central Alabama aren’t reading proficiently is chronic absenteeism from school. More than 17% of Alabama’s students are missing 15 or more school days every year.
Bold Goal
Cultivate a school-wide culture of attendance across school systems, and reduce the rate of chronic absenteeism across Central Alabama to 10% or less by 2023.
Action
We use chronic absence data to determine the need for additional student and family support, develop school staff capacity to adopt best practices and advocate for resources and policies to improve attendance.
Impact/Progress
More than 90% of the schools participating in our Attendance Action Network have improved their chronic absenteeism rates.
Looking at the first 60 days of the 2018-2019 school year compared to the entire previous school year:
- One school reduced chronic absenteeism to 19.6%, down from 38.5%
- Another reduced chronic absenteeism to 17.6%, down from 27.7%
- Most of the other schools reduced their rates by seven percentage points or more
Project Partners
- Lead Organization: Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office – Helping Families Initiative
- Birmingham City Schools
- Midfield City Schools
- Tarrant City Schools
- United Way of Central Alabama
Learn How You Can Help
For information on ways that you can support this vital community project, please contact us at info@boldgoals.org or call 205.458.2059.