Gladstone School District Superintendent Jeremiah Patterson discusses logo design for the district's attendance campaign with high school students.
Running back Jerome Ford and kicker Dustin Hopkins recently spoke to fourth graders at the Warrensville Heights Elementary School, located 15 miles southeast of Cleveland, about the importance of coming to school.
Cleveland Browns running back Jerome Ford visited Warrensville Heights Elementary School in August as part of the "Stay in the Game!" initiative to boost attendance.
The program was launched in 2019 in partnership between the Cleveland Browns Foundation, the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce and Harvard’s Proving Ground. It features a playbook to customize district and school campaigns, Browns-themed attendance campaign materials, incentives and activities to reward improved attendance and peer learning opportunities.
Recent data from the state found chronic absenteeism rates in Ohio fell by 3.4% for the 2022-23 school year and by 1.2% in 2023-24, but decreased by 5.2% and 2.9% in the districts participating in the Stay in the Game program.
A top priority
Chronic student absenteeism—defined as missing more than 10% of school days for any reason—spiked to unprecedented levels during the pandemic across all demographic groups, reaching as high as nearly 30% nationally, or 14 million students in 2020-21.
Those numbers have slowly come down, but remain higher than pre-pandemic levels, with an estimated 19% of students chronically absent in 2023–24.
Education leaders from fourteen states, including Ohio, have made the issue a top priority, signing a pledge this summer developed by Attendance Works, EdTrust and the American Enterprise Institute committing to cutting chronic absenteeism rates in half over the next five years.
Maintaining a positive tone
District leaders are taking different approaches, but often emphasize the importance of keeping it positive rather than punitive. The Gladstone School District (GSD) in Clackamas County, Oregon, for example, turned to its 1,581 students in four schools to come up with a pithy catchphrase and design a logo for t-shirts that promote staying in school.
The resulting campaign, “Gladstone Shows Up”, was the brainchild of a bilingual student who also produced a Spanish version of the logo, while marketing students helped with t-shirt orders. The campaign has made its way into daily school announcements each morning at the local high school.
Getting kids excited about being at school is about reserving judgment and encouraging them to attend so that they feel like they’re an important part of the community, according to GSD Superintendent Jeremiah Patterson. “The message needs to be, ‘It’s nice to see you!’ or ‘Welcome back!’ and not ‘Where were you?’,” he says.
Strength in numbers
At a time when Oregon schools lag behind most states in attendance rates, GSD is bucking the trend. The district’s preschool, elementary, middle and high school are among a handful in the 
GSD Superintendent Jeremiah Patterson says the district is prioritizing making students feel like they are an important part of the community.
During the pandemic, GSD’s chronic absenteeism rate nearly doubled to about 40%. Since then, those numbers have slowly decreased, dropping another 9% this past year to 26%, while there was a 6% districtwide gain in regular student attendance, with most of the progress in the district’s preschool and elementary school.
Community engagement
Patterson credits social and cultural well-being as key drivers behind the decision to shift to a community-wide approach. A community engagement campaign launched to open the current school year featured a City Hall gathering, involvement from local clergy, and bilingual signage promoting the initiative posted in local businesses and on residents’ front lawns.
GSD students appear to be getting the message. Patterson recalls speaking to middle school students and asking if any of them knew what the district’s mission was. A seventh grader raised her hand and said, “Gladstone Shows Up!” Patterson says he saw that as a good sign.
Progress is also being made in Warrensville Heights, where this year’s attendance rate is 91%, slightly up from 87% last year. The district’s goal is 95%. “We’re working collaboratively with our parents to make sure our kids get to school,” Jolly reports.
WHCSD Superintendent Donald J. Jolly, II says the district is working collaboratively with parents to improve attendance.
Another effort to increase attendance at WHCSD has been to broaden after-school programming at every school in the district, offering boxing, wrestling, hair braiding, drama, sports, cooking, swimming, and bowling clubs. The district also requires all senior high school student leaders to mentor at least two seventh grade students with the lowest grades and attendance in their class and to interact with them twice a week.
“We address the problem with human touches, listening to what the issues are and providing students with support,” Jolly says. “We try to make school exciting and fun. School should be a welcoming place for all students, and a place where they feel supported, feel loved, and feel that they have a voice.”
Bruce Shutan is a contributor to DATIA K12 and a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon.
