Credit: David Walter Banks

Parent volunteer Maria Garcia helps a table of kindergartners with math exercises at Lexington Elementary School in Pomona.

Credit: David Walter Banks

Parent volunteer Maria Garcia helps a tabular array of kindergartners with math exercises at Lexington Elementary School in Pomona.

In what scenario is it OK for an elementary school educatee to skip school?

a. She's already doing well in schoolhouse.
b. His proficient beliefs has earned him a well-deserved day off.
c. Her female parent is too tired to bulldoze to schoolhouse.
e. He's spending quality time on a family holiday.

All of the above, according to a survey of California parents whose elementary schoolchildren missed more than 10 days of school in 2014-fifteen. "Parents actually undervalue the touch on of absences in elementary school," said Jill Habig, special assistant attorney general in Chaser General Kamala Harris' office. "That is true across income levels."

The attorney full general is trying to change that.

In what may exist a showtime for California education, Harris has formed a partnership with the Ad Quango to bring Madison Avenue marketplace inquiry and advice strategy to the problem of chronic absence, an early indicator of students at risk of dropping out. Roughly 230,000 California elementary school students – nigh one in 12 – in 2014-15 were chronically absent, defined equally missing more than 10 percent of school for reasons that are excused, unexcused or the effect of disciplinary suspension. Research has linked chronic absenteeism in kindergarten and 1st form to difficulty reading in third course, and students who are non reading at grade level in 3rd grade are four times as likely to driblet out of high school.

But a 5- or 6-year-former child looks to a parent or caregiver to make the rules governing when, how and why to go to school – and schools, under country and federal pressure to rails and reduce excessive absenteeism, increasingly are trying to influence the rules parents are or are not setting. For strategic advice, Harris turned to the Ad Council, a New York-based nonprofit marketing agency known for launching iconic public service campaigns such as "Friends don't let friends drive drunk." Its task, funded by The California Endowment, was to answer one question: "What'southward the best style to talk to parents about absences in elementary schoolhouse?"

The Ad Council last year surveyed more than 1,000 English- and Castilian-speaking parents, held dwelling visits with 24 families from Northern, Central and Southern California, and interviewed seven educators and experts in the attendance field. All of the parents contacted had children attending a K-5 public schoolhouse and lived in households that earn less than $50,000 a year. Children in lower-income families frequently face obstacles in getting to school, including being unable to obtain timely medical and dental care, and are more likely to exist chronically absent, research has found.

"Parents really undervalue the affect of absences in elementary school," said Jill Habig, special assistant chaser general.

Last calendar week, Harris and the Advertising Quango released the results in inquiry papers, electronic mail templates for teachers and other communication tools for schools. The message that seemed to most strongly motivate parents to think twice about nonmedical elementary schoolhouse absences was that such absences reduce the odds of graduating from high school, the report said. Another high-impact message was that what students learn in pre-kindergarten and elementary grades builds a foundation that volition be incomplete if besides many days are missed.

"Parents know that attendance is important, still rationalize absences," states the Ad Council written report on survey findings. The report noted "inconsistency" and "dissonance" equally parents said they understood that absences could hurt their child'due south academic functioning but also said, "Absences do not matter as much in the early years," and "Others in my child'due south class miss every bit much schoolhouse as my kid."

More than one-half the parents surveyed said information technology's not "a big bargain" for a kindergartner to miss school. They said they'd kept their children out of school for nonmedical reasons that included parent fatigue, family vacation, educatee is doing well at school, student doesn't want to go to school and educatee has earned a solar day off equally a reward.

Parents associated the pupil's absences with the rewards that they or the kid received – which researchers characterized as "enjoyment, harmony, rest, safety and convenience" – and not on the issue the absences would have on the kid's learning. Parents whose children were beingness bullied felt particularly strongly that they were keeping their child home to be safe, researchers plant.

Researchers tested four statements most attendance to encounter which phrases struck parents equally believable and motivating. "Attendance matters" was constitute to be the most convincing, followed by "absences add together up," and "besides many absences now can lead to poor habits subsequently." The phrase "all absences are equal" wasn't institute to be particularly persuasive.

Letters aside, parents said that they would exist well-nigh motivated to improve attendance if their child'south teacher talked with them near the consequences of absences. The more particular the messages are, the meliorate, researchers found, so a teacher who said she hopes the student won't miss tomorrow'southward lesson on counting past 5's is more effective than a generic "hope to see you in school" comment.

A total rollout of the advice tools for schools is expected earlier the almanac Omnipresence Awareness month in September. "Districts are starting to see the connection between omnipresence and academic achievement," Habig said. "When schools invest even a little bit in engaging parents more direct when students are starting to miss schoolhouse – those small investments are really paying off."

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