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SALT LAKE CITY — Today is the second annual NEST day. NEST stands for "No Empty Seats Today," and schools across Salt Lake County are putting a big emphasis on the link between attendance and success.
There will be attendance contests between classrooms and schools today; many students and teachers will be wearing orange, and civic leaders, police and others will talk to kids about why it's so important to go to school every day.
The superintendent of the Murray City School District, Steven Hirase, has vowed to dye his hair orange if no students in that district are absent today.
Deb Ashton, the Safe and Drug Free Schools coordinator with the Murray School District, says truancy is connected to academic failure, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, and violence.
"It's so much better for academic achievement and social competencies when students attend school every day," she said. "They can't go wrong if they attend every day." Ashton says students who miss two or more days a month achieve 20 percent less than their fellow students.
"What the school and parents can do is help the students engage in school and attend every day. If they attend every day, they will be successful," she said.
The district says last year more than 11,000 students participated and increased school attendance by 58.9 percent on NEST day. Salt Lake County says on any given school day, an average of 5,500 elementary students are missing throughout the five school districts in the county.
Throughout the course of a school year, that adds up to 1 million missed days.
The NEST Campaign focuses on elementary schools because missed school days in elementary can have lasting impact on a student's education.
Contributing: The Associated Press
