Nationwide ad campaign will chide parents: Don't let your child miss school
The federal government is launching a multimillion-dollar advertising campaigndesigned to persuade parents of elementary and middle school students to get them to school every day.
The Ad Council's "Every Student, Every Day" campaign, paid for in part my the Mott Foundation, will target parents to inform them of the devastating toll on students who miss even one day of school every two or three weeks. Students who are chronically absent are unlikely to learn to read well and are even less likely to graduate from high school.
In Oregon last year, 94,000 students missed at least 10 percent of the school year, meaning they were chronically absent.
The Ad Council has a track record of helping the nation make progress on some of its biggest public health and safety concerns, federal officials said. Its new anti-absenteeism campaign will include billboards, public service announcements at bus shelters and posters hung in barbershops, doctors' offices and schools. A website will offer parents resources to help support them in getting their child to attend school, including an online tool kit with blog posts, infographics and absence trackers. The website will also include resources for educators, community leaders and organizers of after-school programs.A recent report by America's Promise Alliance found that having a caring adult in their lives was a major factor in lowering a student's odds of dropping out of high school. Having a caring adult in school had a larger impact than having a caring adult at home, reducing a student's likelihood of leaving school by 25 percent.
The Oregonian/OregonLive explored Oregon's chronic absenteeism epidemic in great detail in its Empty Desks investigative report. You can read all five parts online or download your own copies of the series to print and share.
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