Celebrating the 2025 Attendance Innovation Award Winners!
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After receiving an enormous number of inspiring nominations for our first annual Attendance Innovation Awards, we’re excited to announce the winners:
Grand Prize Winner of a $5,000 scholarship for a graduating senior + $2,000 in attendance incentives:
Menchville High School - Newport News Public Schools, Virginia
Implementing a special soccer league to improve attendance for students who are EnglishLearners, the team elevated the love of the sport which not only brought more students into school but also introduced them to skills beyond athleticism, including statistics and public speaking. By scheduling tournaments on days with historically low attendance, they saw that day’s average daily attendance improve, and the overall English Learner chronic absenteeism rate drop from 33% to 29%.
Four Runner Up Winners of $1,000 in attendance incentives:
Carver College and Career Academy - Chesterfield County Public Schools, Virginia
Created a culture of accountability, support, and engagement through structured homeroom programming, compelling incentives, and a multi-tiered attendance initiative that helped students understand why school matters, and in turn, improved attendance. 53% of students improved or maintained their attendance over the prior school year and participation in extracurriculars surged.
Clark County School District, Nevada
Supported families and raised awareness around the importance of attendance through numerous community partnerships, including both local businesses and nonprofits. This resulted in a measurable reduction in chronic absenteeism from 36% in the 2022-2023 school year to 28% by early 2025.
Glendora Unified School District, California
Focused on supporting families and improving attendance through professional learning communities, strategic use of data, and a dedicated resource center. Over the past two years, the district has seen chronic absenteeism rates move from 17.5% to just under 8%.
Perris Union High School District, California
Nurtured family engagement and improved attendance through evidence-based PELI (Parent Engagement Leadership Initiative) Action Teams designed to re-engage students and families through meaningful connection, communication, and student voice. This resulted in a districtwide reduction of chronic absenteeism by nearly8%, increased family participation in school-based engagement activities, and higher rates of student participation in peer-to-peer mentoring, leadership opportunities, and voice-focused forums.
These innovators exemplify the power of collaborating with students, families, and the broader community to build meaningful initiatives that drive strong attendance. Our team was also proud to see our partners in Newport News and Glendora shine. They demonstrate the innovation and creativity that can be unlocked when educators are not overwhelmed by the administrative work of sending family communications and compiling attendance data.
Want to learn more about these winning strategies? Tune in on August 14 at 2 pm ET/11 am PT to hear directly from the educators at each of these districts and perhaps incorporate some of their strategies into your own attendance efforts in the 25-26 school year.
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Attendance Insights Briefing: Tangipahoa Parish School System & EveryDay Labs Case Study
The Tangipahoa Parish School System (TPSS) serves 19,200 students across 34 campuses in southeastern Louisiana. After the pandemic it became clear that low student attendance was getting in the way of academic achievement. In the 23-24 school year, over 37% of Tangipahoa students were chronically absent, missing 10% or more school days. Recognizing that addressing chronic absenteeism would be necessary in order to increase academic achievement, Superintendent Melissa Stilley prioritized improvement as one of three strategic “rocks”, and TPSS launched a partnership with EveryDay Labs in 2024. The partnership was part of a pilot funded by the Louisiana State Department of Education to improve student attendance in select districts across the state. Over the first full year of the partnership, TPSS achieved incredible success, reducing the number of chronically absent students by 19% (6.8 percentage points), and increased attendance by over 43,000 days.
Partner Spotlight: The School District of Lee County, Florida
Located in southwestern Florida on the Gulf coast, the School District of Lee County is the 8th largest district in the state, serving over 100,000 students across grades K-12. Despite having done significant, successful work to slash their chronic absenteeism rates nearly in half pre-pandemic, the district faced the same post-pandemic chronic absenteeism challenges as many other districts nationwide. Paul Milford, Administrator of Social Work Services, was tasked with leading the charge to turn absenteeism around. Read on to discover how positive communications and better access to data re-engaged families and got more students back on track for better attendance.
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