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WORKS OF ART!
Three “Whooty Whoos” to all the artists
and schools that helped make this
another incredible year: Whooty Whoo!
Whooty Whoo! Whooty Whoo!
In honor of At tendance Awareness
Month back in September, the Suncoast
Campaign for Grade-Level Reading hosted
an Attendance Awareness Poster Contest
to promote good attendance habits and
help students and parents understand why
going to school #EveryDayCounts!
An amazing 38,304 students in grades
Pre-K thru 5th participated in the contest
where they learned the importance of
outstanding attendance by creating their
own personalized artwork.
On February 27th, six Manatee County
regional winners will be honored in front of
the school board and gifted with an iPad..
POSTER CONTEST
FUN FACTS!
• 34 public elementary schools in Manatee
County participated.
• There were 215 district winners in
Manatee County.
• Since the inaugural At tendance
Awareness Poster Contest in 2015,
elementary schools in both Sarasota
and Manatee counties with a history
of chronic absenteeism have shown
significant reductions in student
absences.
Attendance is one of the key solution
areas moving the needle on third-grade
• A child learns to read through 3rd grade,
and they read to learn beginning in
4th grade. When the child can’t read
prociently in 4th grade, they are looking
around realizing everyone is moving on
ahead of them.
• In Manatee and Sarasota counties,
more than 19,000 children ages 11 and
younger are living in poverty.
• 35% of the elementary schools in our
region have more than 80% of their
students hunger-challenged.
• Children who are not reading prociently
by the end of third grade are 14 times
more likely than middle-class children to
drop out before high school graduation.
That means they will be unqualied for
90 % of the available jobs.
Juliana Echeverria
1st Grade, Abel Elementary
Joyce Chen
5th Grade, Willis Elementary
Georgia Pigliavento
2nd Grade, Annie Lucy Williams Elementary
Mya Williams
3rd Grade, Tara Elementary
Talia Stilley
4th Grade, Freedom Elementary
Emily Bueno
Kindergarten, Gullett Elementary