Present at CAAASA 2022: Long Beach USD, Attendance Works & EveryDay Labs!
The 2022 California Association of African-American Superintendents and Administrators (CAAASA) Conference was just a couple weeks ago in Sacramento, and educators from across the state gathered to network and learn from peers and thought leaders in the education space.
On Wednesday, March 30, preeminent experts on attendance Hedy Chang, Founder & Executive Director of Attendance Works and Dr. Erin Simon, Assistant Superintendent of Student Support Services at Long Beach USD, led a session highlighting the state of attendance nationwide and sharing effective practices for improvement.
Emily Bailard, CEO of EveryDay Labs kicked off the session, where Hedy Chang presented the latest in attendance trends nationwide, and emphasized the importance of addressing attendance in order to achieve our equity goals. Attendance is an early indicator for academic success, and the impact of chronic absence only snowballs throughout a student’s time at school.
Dr. Simon and her colleagues are experiencing this attendance crisis in real time at Long Beach USD. They have risen to the challenge and are employing multiple strategies to ensure more students are in school to learn every day, and their attendance initiatives were recently highlighted in EdWeek!
Most importantly, Dr. Simon emphasized the significance of relationships, especially after the past couple years of school closures, distance learning, and economic challenges brought by the Covid pandemic. Family relationships are essential to student success in school, and educators at Long Beach have been dedicated to strong family & community outreach and creating a welcoming and safe school climate that students would like to be every day.
Dr. Simon also touched upon Long Beach’s implementation of a Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) approach to attendance, in which they leverage EveryDay Intervention as a preventative measure for their Tier I and Tier II students.
It was an honor to be present at CAAASA 2022 with so many innovative and mission-driven educators, and we are looking forward to connecting again soon to help drive student success!