Lower Park assistant principal outlines attendance incentives for Attendance Awareness Month

Victoria Clements, assistant principal at Lower Park Middle School, said she was speaking to represent Lower Park for Attendance Awareness Month in September and urged families and students to treat each school day as an opportunity to learn. "Every time you are here at school, it's an opportunity to learn because every lesson builds on the day before," she said.

Clements described the school's early-intervention approach to attendance, saying staff work to identify and reduce barriers that keep students from coming to school. She detailed incentive programs the school uses: hallway "thermometer" trackers display team progress by grade as students and families pass toward the cafeteria; staff examine monthly attendance data and award the team with the strongest attendance with incentives such as pizza parties or ice-cream socials. For individual recognition, she said students who miss no more than one day or accumulate no more than two tardies during the second or third nine-week period earn a visit to Uptown Pinball. Clements closed by reiterating the core message that "every day count and every student matters."