“Today, we launched the ‘Attend Today. Achieve More Tomorrow.’ attendance awareness campaign!” In an email to Council Bluffs staff, Dr. Vickie Murillo said, “Our collective efforts to identify and address barriers that our students and families face can and will make a positive difference.”
Council Bluffs Community Schools is now offering an incentive to solve the attendance problem among students. In order to motivate students to attend class, the Council Bluffs school district has started an attendance incentive campaign in partnership with Hy-Vee. The way the campaign works is at the end of every quarter, each student with a 90% attendance rate or higher will receive a dozen free cookies along with a 10% discount coupon to be used in all Hy-Vee stores.
“We are deeply committed to giving back to the communities we serve. Our caring culture and passion for helping others are evident in the outreach efforts of our stores and employees, as well as the financial support we provide to numerous organizations and initiatives,” said Tessa Schlatter, a member of the Hy-Vee marketing team. “We take pride in supporting a wide range of organizations, and when selecting partners, we always ask ourselves: Does this align with our mission? Will it make lives easier, happier, and healthier? I believe our partnership with Attend Today, Achieve More Tomorrow clearly answers ‘yes’ to all these questions.”
ALHS also occasionally implements school-wide efforts where students can receive treats for simply showing up to class on time. In the past, raffle tickets have been given to students who show up on time so that they may exchange the tickets for treats in the commons. However, the most recent incentive was the grad coaches selecting classrooms at random, and every student who arrived before the tardy bell rang received a piece of candy. This is put in place so that students who don’t have perfect attendance still have a chance to get rewarded.
“Each building’s Attendance Team determines what incentives will be and how the rewards will be earned,” said Eric Dotty, one of the graduation coaches at AL. “After determining what incentive we are going to offer, there is an application process through Student and Family Services for the funds and they determine if we receive the funds. The incentive that the Grad Coaches are doing at AL this week has been something we’ve done for the last two or three years.”
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, students who attend school regularly have been shown to achieve at higher levels than students who do not have regular attendance. “Attend Today. Achieve More Tomorrow” and Abraham Lincoln’s yearly efforts to improve attendance are put in place with the goal that students will show up and put forth their best efforts to be successful.
