Norwalk schools report drop in chronic absenteeism after ‘Stay in the Game’ campaign

Norwalk City School District officials told the board on Sept. 10 that a districtwide attendance campaign tied to the “Stay in the Game” playbook helped reduce the district’s chronic absenteeism rate from 20.1% to 18.3% in the most recent reporting year. Sandy Stewart and Jen Gerber, who presented the plan to the board, said the district adopted the playbook’s data-driven approach, teacher reports and incentive activities to focus effort across all six district buildings.

The district framed the campaign around chronic absenteeism — defined in the presentation as missing days that add up to learning loss regardless of whether absences are excused — and said the state-backed Stay in the Game program supplies a playbook, packaged incentives and quarterly reporting requirements the district now uses to measure progress. Stewart and Gerber told the board the district exceeded the state improvement goal: the state’s improvement target was a 3% reduction, and the district recorded a 9% improvement under the metric the presenter cited.

Stewart and Gerber described three main strategies: raising awareness with staff and families, giving teachers regular data on each student’s risk category, and using low-burden, classroom-level interventions and buildingwide incentives. The district uses a color-coded risk system supplied by the program: satisfactory (five or fewer missed days), at risk (about five to nine missed days), moderate chronic absenteeism (10–19%), severe (20–49%) and extreme (50% or more). Teachers receive color-coded lists twice each quarter showing where each student stands so they can make early, positive outreach to students and families.

Presenters said the program pairs incentives — T-shirts, yard signs, prize events and districtwide spirit weeks — with ongoing data collection so school staff can spot trends. The presenters noted some disruptive factors, such as a heavy influenza season in January that depressed attendance and required clarifying health guidance for families about when to keep children at home. To reduce lost instructional time the district piloted building-level challenges such as attendance brackets and prize rewards; the presenters said those activities helped restore momentum after the winter illness spike.

The presentation also emphasized long-term academic consequences tied to chronic absence. District presenters summarized research distributed with the Stay in the Game materials showing that missing roughly two days per month accumulates into substantial lost instruction — for example, about 121.5 hours in a school year — and correlates with lower grade-level reading outcomes, higher dropout risk by ninth grade, and reduced graduation likelihood. The presenters credited teachers and school staff for engaging with the campaign and encouraged sustaining the program across the school year.

District staff said their operational goal for the year is to reduce the number of students in the “orange” (moderate risk) category by three percentage points and that the district leadership team has made the attendance target a district priority. They also said the district’s Stay in the Game committee meets roughly twice a month and includes representatives from each building, central office and the high school, and that current incentive activities include an ongoing contest tied to tickets and signed footballs donated through program partnerships.

Board members thanked the presenters for the work; one board member asked how the district’s rate compares to the state and was told the district is lower than the state average though exact comparative figures by district size were “not specified” during the meeting. No formal board action was taken at the presentation; the item was informational and part of the public agenda.

The district plans continued quarterly reporting to the Stay in the Game program and said staff will keep teachers updated on student risk-category changes so teachers can do early outreach to families. The presenters said participating in the state-backed campaign provided both material incentives and the organizational structure the district lacked when it began its local attendance efforts.