Every Day Counts
Every Day Counts is a Spark SF Public Schools initiative designed to channel community and philanthropic dollars to increase students’ sense of belonging and reduce chronic absenteeism at SFUSD, thereby improving the chance that all SFUSD students succeed at school and beyond.
How We Make Every Day Count
In 2022, SFUSD identified chronic absenteeism as a priority to address in the pursuit of delivering excellence and equity to all students. SFUSD set the goal to reduce chronic absenteeism from 29% in June 2022 to 24% in June 2024.
SFUSD actively engaged community, families, students in a concerted effort to reduce chronic absenteeism and prioritized services to support students in coming to school, and ensuring they feel safe and a sense of belonging in school. Within the first year, progress was made and SFUSD exceeded its goal by 1%: its chronic absenteeism rate declined from 29% in June 2023 to 23% in June 2024.
Your donation will help provide the following:
- Training for all SFUSD teachers, administrators, and school staff in attendance procedures and best practices;
- Improving efficient utilization of SFUSD's district-wide attendance data collection and reporting systems;
- Developing personalized support plans tailored to the needs of individual students;
- Increase partnerships with Community Based Organizations (CBOs) to help improve attendance;
- Expand targeted universalism practices that organize school communities around using data to solve problems for groups of students who are most impacted.
“One of the most significant challenges we are facing right now in schools is absenteeism (...) because the basic truth is that kids can’t learn if they are not in school.”
- Neera Tanden, Director of the Domestic Policy Council of the United States
Why Every Day Counts
Research shows that chronic absenteeism is directly linked to academic failure and socio-economic marginalization, depriving students of the set of skills they need to acquire in order to thrive in the work force and life. Data also indicates that chronic absenteeism is among the strongest predictors of dropping out of high school. The bottom line is, in order to learn, students need to attend school.
In the 2023-2024 school year, 23% of SFUSD students were chronically absent — that’s nearly one in four students at risk of falling behind in their learning. Our most vulnerable and historically underserved populations are disproportionately affected: 51% of Pacific Islander and African American students, as well as 43% of foster youth, were chronically absent in 2023-2024.
Building on recent progress in improving student attendance, SFUSD has set an ambitious new goal: to reduce chronic absenteeism from 23% in June 2024 to 20% by June 2025. This targeted effort aims to further enhance student engagement and ensure more consistent access to learning opportunities.