The Honorable Arne Duncan
Secretary of Education
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Ave, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20202
Dear Secretary Duncan,
We the undersigned organizations are writing to express our
support of the U.S. Department of Education’s national effort to address
chronic absenteeism. We commend you for your leadership in increasing awareness
of chronic absenteeism as a national problem and are we are committed to
working with you to support efforts to eliminate chronic absenteeism in our
nation’s schools.
We recognize that millions of students are missing too many
school days, placing them at academic risk. This is not simply a matter of
truancy: excused absences often related to illness and lack of access to needed
health supports cost valuable instructional time, as do days lost to
suspension.
We recognize that in order to turn this national problem
around, cross-sector efforts are needed to make sure schools, families and
communities have the tools, resources and support necessary to make sure
students are in school and ready to learn. We believe that the U.S. Department
of Education’s new effort is a critical step towards catalyzing efforts to
address chronic absenteeism and ensuring cross-sector support for efforts to
address this issue.
The undersigned organizations are committed to working with
you and the U.S. Department of Education and others to ensure the success of
his important effort and look forward to working with you to extend the message
of this work.
Sincerely,