The Avon Maitland District School Board is launching its new I AM Here campaign to bolster students’ in-person attendance at schools across Huron and Perth counties following recent disruptions to in-person learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following nearly two years of disruptions to in-person learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Avon Maitland District school board is making more resources and supports available to students and their families to bolster in-person attendance through its new I AM Here campaign.
The campaign is intended to raise awareness about the importance of regular, daily attendance for academic success and to provide staff, students and families with the necessary tools and resources to help schools across Perth and Huron counties improve attendance.
“We’re coming out of – we hope – a situation for the past two-and-a-half years that has been really disruptive for families, for kids and for staff,” school board superintendent of education Jane Morris said. “This has been just unprecedented and what has happened is we have had a lot of movement between online and face-to-face (learning), and even full closures, in a way that I don’t think we’ve ever navigated as a public education system in this province.
“So our hope is to kind of reset some of the work and the expectations and the supports so that families and students are reconnecting with schools and reconnecting with those classrooms because we know learning is best done in the classroom face to face with a teacher. ”
This school year’s focus on student attendance will be supported by four attendance counsellors, hired through some Ontario Ministry of Education funding, who will work collaboratively with the school board’s mental-health and well-being coaches, administrators and community partners to provide students with healthy coping strategies and techniques to reduce anxiety and stress and, if necessary, refer students to mental-health and other support services in the community.
The counselors will also work directly with families to help develop a plan that will support students who are struggling with the full return to in-person learning.
“So if families are struggling to get their kids back on track and back to school, we’ve got a couple of things we’ll be doing,” Morris said. “We’re going to be sending out some tips and tricks on how to reconnect and get back on track, but we also can support families directly through these attendance counsellors. Families can connect with their school principal and their principal can connect them with their local attendance counselor … or any other supports they’re looking for.”
This campaign’s push to re-establish regular, in-person attendance across the board goes both ways. While families can reach out to their school principal to seek support, principals and attendance counselors may also reach out to families to offer support if they notice a student is chronically absent.
The I AM Here campaign officially launches in September 2022. For more information about the campaign, visit amdsb.ca/iamhere.