With 240 schools, 256,000 students, and more than 110,000 adult learners, Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) is the second-largest school district in the state of Florida. BCPS educates students from diverse backgrounds, with 170 countries and 147 languages currently represented in the organization’s student body.
BCPS is committed to providing the best opportunities for its students, and encouraging excellent attendance is one of the ways that the organization achieves this. However, chronic absenteeism is a growing challenge for schools. According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, 1 in 6 students missed three weeks of school or more between 2015-16—a figure that is expected to have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before COVID-19, BCPS achieved a 98% attendance rate, and this impressive score only dropped slightly during the pandemic. While already ahead of other school districts on attendance, BCPS never rests on its laurels. In fact, it recently launched an initiative aimed to get attendance back to its pre-pandemic highs.