AMDSB launches I AM Here campaign to encourage regular attendance at school

As the end of the school year approaches and students’ minds turn to summer vacation and summer jobs, the Avon Maitland District School Board (AMDSB) has launched a new campaign aimed at underscoring the importance of regular attendance at school.

This new campaign, called I AM Here, is targeted at students, school staff, parents and caregivers, and the wider community, all of whom have a role to play in encouraging and supporting regular attendance. According to a press release from the school board, research shows that missing just 10 per cent of school, or two days a month, has a notable impact on student academic success.

“It’s always something that’s in the forefront of our minds,” said Ed Havenga, systems principal of student success and pathways with AMDSB. “Coming out of COVID, it’s now kind of in the rearview mirror and we just want to make sure we are engaging with our families and ensuring we have our students in classrooms so the teachers are delivering and the students are there to work with the teacher and to support the learning that’s in the classroom. In order for that to happen, we need our students there.”

The I AM Here campaign aims to raise awareness about the importance of regular daily attendance and to provide staff, students and parents/caregivers with the necessary tools to bolster attendance across Huron and Perth.

The campaign has four areas of focus:

• For students: I AM Here means they are present, on time and ready to learn each day.

• For school staff: I AM Here means that they stand with their students. They are reliable, dependable, caring adults who facilitate a safe, welcoming classroom environment and are invested in each student’s success.

• For parents/caregivers: I AM Here means they are engaged in encouraging their child’s education and are ready to connect with school staff when necessary.

• For the community: I AM Here means the wider community supports and encourages children and youth by offering support – financial, physical, emotional, social – to ensure students can attend school regularly.

Regular student attendance will be supported by a team of professionals. AMDSB attendance counsellors work collaboratively, as needed, with the school board’s mental health and wellbeing team, Indigenous education team, school administrators and community partners.

Trained staff provide students with techniques to reduce anxiety and stress through the use of healthy coping strategies. If necessary, they can also support referrals to alternative programming or to community resources. Working with parents and caregivers, they can support the development of a plan that encourages a full return to academic learning. Students and parents or caregivers should contact their school principal to access the support of an attendance counsellor.

“Attendance is one of the pillars of the ministry’s student-achievement plan,” Havenga said. “We are constantly looking at our data for our attendance, so we’re looking at students who have greater than or equal to 90 per-cent attendance, so that’s one of our metrics that, as a school board, we’re always looking to increase. We’ve actually created an attendance advisory council, so that council is just now collecting best practices from various schools in the district, and then we’re going to share those ideas with all schools.”

Part of the campaign, Havenga explained, is sharing positive messaging about the importance of regular attendance both in school and on social media through the school board and each individual school’s social-media platforms. He said sharing the positive spinoffs of regular attendance has been proven more effective than trying to scare students into attending school with the potential impacts low attendance can have on learning and their future career paths.

While the program is rolling out now as a sort of pilot before school lets out for the summer, Havenga said board staff will take whatever lessons are learned and the date collected to continue expanding on and improving the program going into the next school year and beyond.

For more information on the I AM Here campaign, visit amdsb.ca/iamhere.