Dear Chief State School Officer:
The Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) and the Student Engagement and Attendance Center (SEAC) are pleased to invite you to join State Supports for Student, Family, and Community Engagement, a virtual learning series for State educational agencies (SEAs), local educational agencies (LEAs) and partners responsible for engaging students, families, and communities to promote regular school attendance.
This learning series will provide participants with an opportunity to:
- Explore effective engagement strategies used by States to address chronic absence;
- Identify ways to support LEAs with engaging key stakeholders to promote regular school attendance; and
- Connect with peers to share promising practices and common challenges.
Each of the three virtual meetings is designed for SEA teams to learn from subject matter experts, share with their peers, and discuss how they can adapt evidence-based practices to their State’s efforts to address chronic absenteeism. This series is part of a year-long focus on Building Systemic Supports for Better Attendance.
Content and Logistics
The State Supports for Student, Family, and Community Engagement learning series will include three sixty-minute virtual meetings. The first session will feature the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce and explore how States can integrate their student, family, and community engagement efforts into broader systems-level strategies to address chronic absenteeism. The second session, featuring the Texas Education Agency will explore State supports for out-of-school time programs to better engage students and increase attendance. The final session will highlight the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s efforts to establish a learning community for LEAs to share promising engagement practices that has led to school-community partnerships to reduce chronic absenteeism.
Who should attend? SEAs are encouraged to select three to five staff to participate as a State team. Additionally, each SEA can invite up to five additional participants from LEAs, technical assistance intermediaries, or other organizations involved in student and family engagement who will benefit from the series.It is strongly encouraged that each State designates a lead to coordinate team selection and that team members participate in all three meetings to support shared learning, collaboration, and follow-through on next steps.
Meeting Schedule: Each session is held via Zoom following the schedule below:
- Session One: Tuesday, August 20, 3:00-4:00 PM ET
- Session Two: Tuesday, August 27, 3:00-4:00 PM ET
- Session Three: Tuesday, September 3, 3:00-4:00 PM ET
Interested participants should register here by Monday, August 19, 2024, and we encourage you to share this link with your colleagues who will benefit from participating as a member of your State team. If you have any questions about the event, please contact the SEAC team at SEACenter@westat.com.
We hope you will consider joining this peer learning opportunity.
Respectfully,
Ruth E. Ryder
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Programs, Formula Grants
Office of Elementary & Secondary Education | United States Department of Education
