COLLINS ACADEMY WON THE ATTENDANCE CHALLENGE!!!

From the Get SchoolED website:

http://www.getschooled.com/and-the-school-who-improved-attendance-the-most-is%E2%80%A6-collins-academy

AND THE SCHOOL WHO IMPROVED ATTENDANCE THE MOST IS...COLLINS ACADEMY!

That’s right, Collins Academy in Chicagoshowed that if you focus on accomplishing a goal and work together, real change is possible. The 400 student school saw an almost 7% increase in attendance over the course of the last six weeks and is this year’s Get MotivatED Challenge winner! That gain reflected the commitment of every staff member and volunteer in the school. With help from a team of City Year Corps members, the administrators opened the gym for free play – basketball, hang time, etc.; kids came early to school to meet up with friends. Teachers and staff plastered themselves with information and encouragement about the challenge so that they became walking ads. And the students responded – they came to school, they got their friends to come, and they used their voices in videos and teacher nominations to recognize a school that was working for them.
Research shows that if students have more than 10 absences in a year their likelihood of graduating on time drops significantly. And students who are more involved in school activities, are more likely to attend school regularly and graduate on time.
The 25 Challenge schools (with an average free or reduced price lunch rate of 86 percent) represent 24,000 students and more than 1,000 school teachers and staff. Schools used a variety of tactics to engage their students and staff throughout the six week challenge, including participating in one of the Challenge’s motivating components (teacher nomination effort, video contest, pep rallies, taped celebrity messages, etc.).
While every participating school that was engaged during the challenge will be recognized for their work through a variety of ways (school trophies, awards for students who led and championed the challenge in their schools, media outreach to help publicize the school’s progress, etc.), Collins will be rewarded with a very special treat. Since they were the school with the greatest percent increase in attendance over the six week period, Get Schooled and Comcast will award three $10,000 college scholarships to students who showed tremendous leadership during the challenge. The College Board will also donate a new counseling library to the school and provide one-year of free access to SAT prep on-line for every junior and senior in the class. All of this will be awarded at an all-school, celebrity-led celebration in May.