Staff Reports | Digital Free Press
Valley of the Sun United Way is celebrating Attendance Awareness Month in Maricopa County by providing toolkits for individual schools, school districts and nonprofits to use in an effort to spread the word about the importance of students attending school and participating regularly.
Chronic absenteeism, when students miss 10% or more of the school year, has steadily increased since the pandemic.
In 2022, it reached an alarming rate of 28% of the student population and 35% of economically disadvantaged students, according to the Arizona Department of Education.
Students who are chronically absent face academic challenges, higher rates of stress and fewer social emotional coping skills than their peers who attend school regularly.
“Valley of the Sun United Way, along with our many partners, want to ensure students are in the classroom ready to learn,” said Carla Vargas Jasa, president and CEO of Valley of the Sun United Way. “By reducing the rate of chronic absenteeism in schools, we are also building stronger communities today and a well-prepared workforce in the future.”
Toolkits created to bolster the program include fact sheets, key statistics and data, suggested messaging to use in communicating to parents, community members and students, flyers for distribution in both English and Spanish, and a customizable proclamation.
Phoenix Mayor,Kate Gallego recently published the Phoenix’s 2024 proclamation to show her commitment to making regular school attendance a priority for Maricopa County schools.
“We are grateful to our partners and Mayor Gallego for supporting the efforts to address the chronic absenteeism crisis we are facing in Maricopa County,” Ms. Vargas Jasa said.
