Community Archives

Involving Campus & Community

On a broad scale, it is well accepted that community engagement is critical for school progress and reform and Strategies for Community Engagement in School Turnaround (School Network Reform, 2014) provides us best practices. Attendance Works shows how important it is to Engage Community Stakeholders in Promoting Attendance and provides inspiring examples specific to Attendance Awareness.

We add United Independent School District (UISD) to those districts worth replicating. UISD shares its successful programs with education leaders at the RaaWee K12 Every Day Matters Summit, November 15, 2019. View this entire best practices session at Involving Campuses & Community for Student Incentives that Work at United ISD – Every Day Matters Summit 11.15.2019.

About UISD

United Independent School District in Laredo, TX – serving the cities of Laredo, El Cenizo and Rio Bravo, and various discrete regions in Webb County – has built a comprehensive program set that draws benefits and success from both by highly engaging the community in the pizza, donuts, and ice cream parties or other “treat-like incentives,” as well as other larger prize opportunities for long-term attendance goals.

This allows local business leaders to play an active role in the success of their future employees and customers and students to build relationships and confidence outside the classroom.

Developing Attendance Awareness

In support of the fundamental premise that the success of their students is highly dependent on each student’s daily school attendance, UISD has built a powerful model for engaging their community in scalable programs that provide fun incentives for classrooms at all campuses and meaningful grade-appropriate recognition, starting in the early grades and continuing through a power prize opportunity for those students who have met the attendance requirements up to graduation day. The overall program set does a wonderful job of tying short-term rewards and recognition (building good attendance habits early) to long-term opportunities. Their Every Day Counts, Never Be Absent, and Kia in the Klassroom programs are examples of this.

With Every Day Counts, UISD elementary and middle school students, strive to attain perfect attendance by classroom in each of the district’s six week grading periods, making them eligible to win fun prizes at their respective campuses. Awareness for these is built with posters, many made by the students, and rewarded with treats sponsored by local businesses. Check out these examples.

Individual classrooms and students attaining perfect attendance – no excused or unexcused absences up to that point in all classes – at UISD elementary or middle school receive Recognition Certificates and are eligible for the grand prize drawings at their campus. These include:

1st Six Weeks: 4 bikes per campus (Elem/Middle)
2nd & 6th Six Weeks: ChromeBook (Elem/Middle)
3rd & 5th Six Weeks: X-box (Elem/Middle)
4th Six Weeks: 4 bikes per Campus (Elem), Beats Solo Wireless Headphones (Middle)

High school students at UISD qualify for additional perfect attendance incentives, under the Never Be Absent program. Students who have maintained perfect attendance have a chance to be their high school’s winner of an all-expense-paid weekend getaway for a family of four to JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa with season passes to Fiesta Texas and movie passes to Santikos Palladium IMAX.

Special Year-End Attendance Program

The prestigious year-end Sames Kia in the Klassroom program provides one lucky high school student who wins a drawing with a brand new Kia Soul car. Students earn drawing chances by maintaining perfect attendance in each 9-week period. Students can earn up to 4 vouchers/chances at the end of the school year drawing. The Sames Kia in the Klassroom car give-a-way program is made real by the long-time sponsorship of the local Sames Kia Dealership. And to add amazing additional value, Laredo Federal Credit Union pays taxes & license fees and A&K Driving School includes their driving course to complete this comprehensive package for this lucky student with perfect attendance.

Funding The Programs

The key question “How are these programs funded?” arises immediately. For UISD, the answer is by engaging the community, a community that eagerly participates because they understand the importance. Asking for participation and donation – small and large – is a regular activity for UISD. Check out this example of a typical request, they have recently used. This Donation Request Letter represents key elements recommended in two great resources for writing your own – How to Write an Efficient Donation Request Letter – A Research Guide or How-To Write a Donation Request Letter.

For more information on these programs and all that United Independent School District does to reach and maintain their Attendance Goals for each student district-wide, check out our Every Day Matter Summit presentation by Jesse Perusquia Jr., Attendance Specialist for UISD.

About the Presenter

Jesse Perusquia Jr., Attendance Specialist, United ISD, TX

Jesse Perusquia Jr. is an Attendance Specialist at United Independent School District (UISD), where he is dedicated to promoting student attendance and engagement. With a focus on fostering positive relationships between students, families, and the school community, Jesse works diligently to implement strategies that improve attendance rates and support student success.

In his role, Jesse collaborates with educators and administrators to identify challenges affecting attendance and develop effective interventions. His commitment to creating a supportive educational environment helps ensure that all students have the opportunity to thrive.

For inquiries, Jesse can be reached at 956-473-6281 or via email at jperusquia@uisd.net.

Attendance Awareness Communications

How to Use Social Media to Improve District Communications (Finalsite.com, 2018) tells us that “Social media has quickly earned itself at the top of the list for necessary communication tools … to improve their school-to-home communications.” The attendance improvement best practices and strategies they share for each social network are valuable for those districts just getting started and existing district users alike. These recommendations include which types of social media are better at reaching which audiences.

About Beaumont USD

Beaumont Unified School District (BUSD) does a great job in their use of social media, and their activities reflect real-time examples of these recommendations. Beaumont USD is situated in the San Gorgonio Pass, in Riverside County, California within a growing city of nearly 45,000 residents. BUSD operates seven elementary, two middle, and two high schools and serves 10,829 K-12 students and their families.

Beaumont USD shared its district strategies, including the successful social media outreach at the RaaWee K12 Every Day Matters Summit, on November 15, 2019. View the entire event at Applying the “Mind in Boat” Teamwork & Focus to Attendance Improvement at Beaumont USD – Every Day Matters Summit 11.15.2019.

Beaumont USD uses Social Media for Successful Outreach

BUSD has applied a comprehensive communication social media strategy to improve the attendance at their schools. Through these tools, they share the great things happening at Beaumont USD on a daily basis. And it serves as cornerstone media in their attendance awareness campaigns.

The social media tools narrate student success stories, employee recognitions and achievements, parent resources, school programs, services, and various opportunities, school board policies, and conventions; these are subjects of great interest that it shares with its community.

District and Community News are communicated through a variety means that include the BUSD website and social media accounts.

The District social media accounts include both district-wide Facebook – BeaumontUSD – and Twitter – @Beaumont_SD – accounts. They also make use of Parent Square and Peach Jar which are their School-Home communication platforms.

Although BUSD does not use Instagram, Snapchat or other accounts, these are also great opportunities to reach specific groups within the community. Check out best practice detail as previously referenced in How to Use Social Media to Improve District Communications (Finalsite.com, 2018) for additional ideas on audience-specific outreach.

They found that both Facebook and Twitter serve them well, but in different ways. They have more parents on their Facebook account and they find that the parents share the flyers and other information amongst one another. Twitter is great because the staff and school sites share their progress, awards, trophies, etc. Everyone appreciates visible recognition.

Consistent Meaningful Attendance Content is Key

The District creates an annual calendar with the contributions of parents, teachers, classified workers and administrators who serve on a calendar committee and use organized community meetings to solicit and incorporate user feedback.

The posted content comes from flyers and other print materials that are provided to the BUSD Communications Officer for posting in both English and Spanish. Don’t forget the importance of addressing community diversity when reaching out using these newer media.

And a final best practice from the Beaumont USD team is the consistency in their social media use. They are committed to and consistent in keeping these accounts are up-to-date and the place to look for information. This keeps everyone involved and communications successful.

For more information on Beaumont Unified School District and all they are doing to reach and maintain their Attendance Goals for each student district-wide, check out our Every Day Matter Summit presentation by Christina Martinez at BUSD.

Tag: Community