District 207 officials told the Board of Education at its August meeting that the district will launch a districtwide attendance campaign this school year under the slogan “Every Day Counts,” setting a 95% attendance expectation and new procedures aimed at reducing chronic absenteeism.

The plan is intended to reduce the district’s chronic absenteeism (projected at about 33% for 2025, district staff said) through a multi-tiered system of supports, clearer expectations for students and families, and new reporting tools that put attendance data at teachers’ and coaches’ fingertips.

District administrators said the initiative matters because attendance is linked not only to academic progress but to students’ connection to school and the broader school culture. “Attendance matters and every day does count,” said Mary, a district administrator who led parts of the presentation. “We really have a renewed focus on attendance.”

District Director of Student Services Kylene Koya described the campaign’s structure and key rules. At the universal, Tier 1 level the district will set a 95% attendance expectation—roughly equivalent to missing no more than two days per month—and teach consistent absence-reporting procedures. “That means not missing more than 2 days in a month,” Koya said. The district will also implement uniform makeup-work guidelines: students generally will have a five-day window to make up missed assignments and are expected to make up summative assessments upon return, with accommodations preserved for those covered by IEPs, 504 plans or multilingual supports.

The district is instituting an extracurricular daily-participation rule for practices, performances and competitions: students must be present for at least half the school day (not miss more than two class periods) to participate that day. Excessive tardiness—arriving more than 10 minutes late to class three or more times in a day—can also affect eligibility. Koya said exceptions for bereavement, college visits and similar circumstances will be handled individually, and course‑linked, graded co‑curricular experiences (for example, a music performance for class credit) are exempt.

To identify students who need help, the district will use a tiered response. Tier 2 will include targeted group interventions and a screening tool the district plans to deploy; an early‑semester outreach called “First 30” will assign a staff member to check in with higher‑risk 10th–12th graders who struggled the prior semester. Tier 3 will expand one‑to‑one supports using an advocate model in partnership with North Cook for East and West high schools (about 50 students can be supported through that program at East and West, the district said) and a smaller version at South.

The district also unveiled technical and communication changes intended to speed responses. Automated parent notifications will be sent if a student has not arrived by 10 a.m., with a second message by 6 p.m. if the absence is still unreported. Teachers will receive a rolling five‑day attendance report for their rosters each Monday; sponsors and coaches will be emailed daily lists of students who do not meet participation thresholds. The district plans biweekly attendance letters to families (moving from a prior monthly cadence) and quarterly public updates on trends.

Board members asked operational questions about enforcement, coach notification and how the system will treat students who leave school for work or who have school‑avoidance issues. Mary and Koya said those matters go to root‑cause work by student‑family services teams and that individual plans may be developed for students whose families rely on part‑time earnings or who experience trauma or medical needs.

The rollout will begin with staff training on Institute Day and phased implementations of components across the first weeks of school so teachers and families can be taught the new procedures. Koya said the district benchmark is to create consistency across its three high schools and to use data to “visualize the 95% attendance” for families and staff.

Board action: The presentation was a discussion and rollout plan; no policy vote was taken at the meeting. District staff said the makeup‑work guideline will be used as an operational guideline consistent with existing board policy that permits makeup work for excused absences and suspensions, and that board policy will continue to govern formal exceptions.

What’s next: District staff said they will continue implementation planning, monitor early data, and bring questions or recommended policy adjustments to the board if needed.