The hallways and classrooms of Dowagiac’s school buildings once again sprang to life Tuesday morning, as children and teens returned to class for the first day of the fall semester.

Educators’ mission for the new school year is simple — to ensure that every single student that came to class Tuesday continues to show up throughout the year, on time and ready to learn.

As another round of lectures, assemblies and homework begins, administrators throughout Dowagiac Union Schools are increasing efforts to that attendance numbers remain high during the new school year. The district-wide effort will see elementary school staff work with parents to help children miss as little instruction time as possible through absences or tardiness.

“We want to emphasize that learning takes place all day — from when the bell rings in the morning to when the bell rings in the afternoon,” said Kincheloe Principal Cathy Stone.

With this in mind, all four elementary schools are adopting some of the policies already in place at the middle and high school to combat this problem.

For example, parents will now receive an automated voice message telling them of their child’s absence whenever an absence is not reported to the school before hand. In addition, the administration will send out letters to parents whenever their child records his or her sixth, ninth and 12th absence for the year.

On top of those efforts, each school is also looking for ways to make attendance a priority with parents and students. At Justus Gage, the administration has put together a video with the school’s IT department to highlight the issue, which will be shown during the school’s open house Wednesday, said Principal Bryan Henry.

“We want to show parents the importance of attendance and promptness, to make them aware of the adverse affects that absenteeism has on their children’s education,” Henry said.

The video will also be posted on the school’s Facebook page, Henry said.

The administration will also reach out to area dentist offices to try and encourage them to schedule student patients for afterschool appointments whenever possible, or at least change around times so that children will not consistently miss the same class period every time they have an appointment, Henry said.

While the absence policies have long been at place at Dowagiac Union High School, administrators there are renewing their push to make it a higher priority for students, said Principal Kelly Millin. A committee consisting of Assistant Principal Mike Churchill and several teachers are working to determine possible incentives to give students who make punctual attendance a priority, she said.

While average daily attendance numbers are quite high at the school —  in the mid 90s percentage wise — the administration still wants to make sure that the students who miss class more often as their peers learn the value that showing up to school on time will have in their academic futures, she said.

“If the assignment was just ‘read this page of the textbook,’ then the teacher can just give them that as homework if they miss class,” Millin said. “But learning is more than reading pages out of books; it is the interaction of working with peers and the high level thinking that goes along with that.”