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JACKSON – During her comments at the Northampton County Board of Education meeting here Jan. 13, Schools Superintendent Dr. Rosa Atkins said the district is seeing gains in student achievement. And to keep that success going, they’re going to focus on emphasizing student attendance this semester.

“That’s a major area that we need to strengthen,” she told the Board.

“Each day that a student is not in school, that means there are six hours of instruction that they will miss. When you multiply that by 10 or 20 or 30 absent days, we can all see what an impact that has on student’s opportunity for learning,” she continued.

Dr. Atkins encouraged parents to make sure their students are attending school each day, and she said the district will make more efforts to emphasize the importance of attendance on a regular basis.

In addition to the district’s attendance initiative, Dr. Atkins also said they were going to continue to engage with the local community.

She noted that several staff members took a bus tour throughout the county to visit families across the district at the beginning of the school year, and they had received a lot of positive feedback on that outreach program. They plan to make more community visits in the upcoming semester.

“The work that we do on a day-to-day basis, we cannot do it without our parents, without our community. You’re a vital part of what we do, and we appreciate you so much,” Dr. Atkins concluded.