Elevating Attendance: the Foundation of Recovery, Communications, and Engagement

Friday February 18, 2022
2:30 - 3:30 PM
208-210

Districts across the country are facing unprecedented levels of unfinished learning in their students, in part because more students were chronically absent last year than ever before. Students across the country will return to school in the fall needing extra support to recover learning missed during the pandemic. While strategies to close learning gaps might include tutoring and professional development, student attendance is the foundation of all recovery plans that districts must address. We’ll share our experiences and Coffee County School System’s lessons learned from the pandemic, as well as evidence-based practices to proactively identify and engage most at-risk students. Coffee County’s graduation rates and CCRPI scores are the highest, driven by access to attendance data and using research-based practices to understand student attendance and engage with families. We know that regular communications with families strengthen the home-school trust.

Presenters
Alexandra Meis

Alexandra manages Kinvolved’s growth on the ground and brings to her work a deep empathy for families and end users. Her responsibilities include product and technical development, client success and operations, and impact evaluation. She also manages development of, and ongoing support for, Kinvolved’s Campus Kit, a Robin Hood Foundation-funded higher education mobile app.

Prior to Kinvolved, as an AmeriCorps VISTA member Alexandra served communities in the South Bronx, educating and advocating for families of children with special needs. She organized a support group for parents of children with autism, which she grew from five to more than one hundred participants over five years.

 Alexandra is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community; she also mentors entrepreneurs in New York University’s Accelerator Programs. She holds an MPA in Health Policy and Analysis from NYU's Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service and a BA in Psychology from Lafayette College.

 
type:
Lecture
theme:
leadership
audience:
district leaders
tags:
parent family community engagement