The year after COVID-19 hit, Memphis principal Kamie Cowan knew she needed to get students back in their seats.
More than half of the students at Compass Berclair, a local K-8 charter school, were chronically absent in 2022, meaning they missed at least 18 days of school, or more than 10% of the school year.
Last year, only three of the school’s 230 students met that mark. Cowan said that dramatic drop started in the 2022-23 school year, when she put together an attendance team that met every other week to review attendance data and problem solve…