Attendance Awareness Kickoff to a Successful school year

United Way of Yellowstone County is joining a nationwide effort to celebrate Attendance Awareness month, in September. The effort contains a pledge to raise awareness about regular school attendance.

Attendance Matters started at McKinley Elementary Tuesday, August 16th, and will continue tomorrow at Newman Elementary, Wednesday, August 17th, followed by Rose Park Elementary, August 20th. Volunteers go door-to-door reminding parents the first day of school is August 25th.

While the month kicks off nationally in September, Billings will conduct the campaign August 25th-September 25th. The event is important to United Way because just last year, more than 2,000 students in Billings were chronically absent. That means more than 10% of school was missed, which equals to two or more missed school days per month.

United Way of Yellowstone County, Director of Impact, Kristin Lundgren said, “This is so important for our whole community. We in Billings are trying to increase our graduation rates. We know we lose about 200 kids out of every class. We know that most of them, attendance was a significant problem. So all of Billings shout out get on board let's help out kids succeed in school by getting into school.”

United Way also reminds parents, students need to be current on immunizations before starting school. For more information, you can call your school or health care provider.