All of Us Across OUSD Celebrate Attendance Awareness Month, and We Know Every Month is Time to Focus on Good Attendance

As we near the end of September, Attendance Awareness Month, I want to celebrate a good start to the school year, and the gains that we have seen across the District in attendance. Despite the fact that we still have yet to return to our attendance levels before the pandemic, we have seen improvement! And this year attendance is a top priority for me and for all of our schools. Together, we will make additional gains in our attendance.

Attendance is all of our work - students, families, staff, Board of Education, and community partners. We know that attendance is the foundation for success in school and life. Missing just two days per month means missing 10% of the school year. You couldn't miss 10% of your work time at any job and be OK. And for our young people, being students is their job. It's their profession to learn, and when they miss school, they miss out on important teaching and learning, quickly falling behind. The more days missed, the harder it is to catch up. Being absent also means missing out on the activities and services our schools provide, such as sports, music, after school enrichment, tutoring, and social emotional support. Every day counts!

We know that for kids to want to attend school, their learning environments need to be warm, vibrant, and fun. That's why we've invested so much time, money, and support from community partners such as Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation, Trust for Public Land, and the Golden State Warriors to revitalize our school yards, libraries, and other school features in recent years. We now have nearly two dozen new school yards at elementary schools, with more on the way. In fact, Eat. Learn. Play. and its partner, KABOOM! are redoing the main playground on the Manzanita campus next month. In November, the playground at Emerson Elementary will receive the same treatment. These joyful spaces bring kids to school and help them grow and thrive.

Likewise, we are focused on using engaging curriculum in class, offering linked learning pathways to our high school students that they want to explore, providing a wide variety of sports and other extra curricular activities to all students, and having the very best staff who are here to give our students the education, care, and support they all deserve.

I applaud our staff for working hard every day to create learning environments that are exciting, rigorous, and inspirational. And I thank our families for providing our students the support they need to succeed in school. Now, let's work together to ensure that more of our students make it to school every day. I am committed to championing attendance at every opportunity.

For more information about the negative impacts of absenteeism, see 10 Facts from Attendance Works. September may be Attendance Awareness Month, but for our students and their future, we must focus on good attendance all year long.

In community,

Dr. Denise Saddler
Superintendent