SEPTEMBER 2026 DATES 📅

Awareness Dates:

September: Suicide Awareness Month
September: Attendance Awareness Month
September: Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

7: Labor Day 💼👷🏻‍♂️👷🏻‍♀️ No School
8: Physical Therapy Day
11: Patriot Day
13: National Grandparents Day
15: National IT Professionals Day
17: Constitution Day
22: Autumn Begins
26: National PTO Appreciation Day

Character Education Calendar

September 8-13: Fairness & Courtesy
September 14-20: Responsibility & Sportsmanship/ Hispanic American Month
September 21-27: Career Planning - Galaxy & Navigating - Exploration
September 28 - October 4: Elementary - Trustworthy / Secondary - Digital Citizenship

THIS IS ATTENDANCE AWARENESS MONTH! 🎉

Common School Attendance Myths - then the fact.

Myth: Missing two to three days of school a month is not a big deal - Fact: It actually adds up to chronic absences over time.
Myth: Early attendance doesn't matter (People think missing school in Kindergarten or Elementary Grades is fine) - Fact: Attendance in Early Grades effects kids learning (The truth is early absences form bad habits and hurt reading skills by the third grade)
Myth: Excused absences do not hurt (Families believe that missing class is only a problem if it is unexcused) - Fact: Even “excused” absences can lead to missed learning opportunities (The truth is that students still miss core instruction and social time regardless of the excuse.)
Myth: Students can easily catch up on work - Fact: Catching up can effect so much of their future (The truth is that missing interactive classroom learning is hard to replace with just worksheets.)
Myth: Checking out is not going to affect my child (Most think if their student just checks out every now and again it doesn't effect anything) - Fact: The truth is checking out makes the student tardy (Tardies build up to attendance and academic issues.)
Myth: Parents have unlimited parent excuses (Parents often think as long as they get excuses in that it will be covered) - Fact: The truth is that 10 parent excuse is all that a student has for the whole year. (That adds up. 1 day = 1 excuse.)

Attendance effects Mental Health in Students

High levels of both absence from school and poor child and adolescent mental health in many wealthy countries in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic have focused attention on relationships between school non-attendance and student mental health and wellbeing. There is a large literature showing that poor school attendance is associated with mental health problems, with mechanisms postulated to include social isolation from peer groups, isolation from supportive adults including teachers and pastoral staff, learning loss and removal from the safety-net of essential child support services that schools enable. However systematic reviews have concluded the quality of studies in this area is poor, with the great majority of studies being cross-sectional. This is problematic because there is likely a reciprocal relationship between school absence and mental health, with mental health problems causing children to miss school and school absence worsening mental health and wellbeing.

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Meet our Attendance Officer:

Celia Flanagan, M. Ed.

Attendance Officer

PASS Counselor

Chilton County Schools

Mrs. Flanagan has been the Attendance Officer for Chilton County Schools for 10 years this year. She is also the student counselor at PASS Academy.

Prior to her work as the Attendance Officer she worked as a Therapist in the community mental health setting. She graduated from the University of Alabama with a BS in Psychology and the University of Montevallo with a Masters in School Counseling.

Mrs. Flanagan has a passion for students and believes that education is the key to success in life. She is a key asset to us here in Chilton County. She has been a huge part of our success. Alabama ranks #1 in School Attendance currently. Mrs. Flanagan is a big part of making that possible for our district.