In the days following the Gym Class Takeover at Elmwood Elementary School in April, the school buzzed with excitement. Talk of the visit that featured hands-on instruction of football-skills stations, contests and non-contact games, and the presence of members of the Browns' front office as well as Chomps, echoed through the hallways and in conversations among students and teachers.
It was a testament to the hard work the students put into their improved attendance as well as state testing for those who were chosen to participate in the visit. It also served as a motivating factor for younger students to work towards those opportunities offered to highlight their enhanced attendance.
"I'm really looking forward to the continued partnership and actually seeing some change in our attendance," Family & Civic Engagement Coordinator for Garfield Heights City Schools Gina Wilson said. "These last three years we really have been focusing on processes and procedures and what we can do to support every building where we see that there's a deficit or there's a need. We're really excited to continue to work, continue to create these processes and procedures and actually seeing our attendance increase, especially for our populations that we have found that attendance is a really chronic issue for them."
Stay in the Game! Attendance Network (SITG!), managed by Battelle, provides school districts with a number of different resources – such as the campaign Playbook – campaign materials, digital resources, incentives and player and mascot visits, all aimed at increasing school attendance and decreasing chronic absenteeism.
The campaign Playbook is a comprehensive online guide for districts in creating an attendance campaign, which allows districts to bring together a team to address absenteeism. Districts utilize localized data from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce to help inform their campaign strategy, while also monitoring goals they set for the district. The Playbook includes communication tips to raise awareness of the importance of coming to school and ideas for engagement opportunities for celebratory events and attendance recognition. Districts can also use the scheduling tool to plan activities for the year so they can see the full scale of their attendance campaign.
Districts that make the commitment to fill out the Playbook and implement an attendance strategy in the communities are also provided campaign materials and incentives to complement their attendance campaign at no cost to the district. The campaign materials include items that are designed by the Browns and include yard signs, posters, parent handouts, notecards and banners, all aimed at increasing awareness of the importance of attendance. Incentive items are provided to students as a reward for great attendance or improving their attendance. Districts receive items such as Browns water bottles, lanyards, school supplies, fidgets, keychains, hats and sunglasses.
Districts also have access to digital resources on stayinthegame.org that include video messages from players about attendance, read along videos narrated by players, attendance certificates and attendance trackers.
"The Network is great with so many incentives, all those other resources, but that's just a bonus of being in the Network," Wilson said. "The foundation and the guidance and the resources in the Playbook, everything that has come along with the Network in that support has forced us to look through a different lens when it comes to attendance and actually how to support and come down to the root cause of why our students are not in school."
Growth of the Network
At the start of the 2022-23 school year, SITG! had partnered with 17 school districts in Ohio. By the end of the 2023-24 school year, that number more than tripled the number of participating school districts to 57.
During the 2022-23 school year, SITG! districts on average lowered their chronic absenteeism by 5.2 percent, according to the 2022-23 Ohio State Report Card, compared to 3.4 percent as a state. SITG! significantly outperformed the state with 41 percent of SITG! districts lowering chronic absenteeism by 8.5-10.9 percent, exemplifying the positive effect that the SITG! is having on Ohio's students.
In Ohio, students who have never been chronically absent are 6.7 times more likely to read on grade level by the end of third grade and nine times more likely to graduate from high school on time. With Ohio's current rate of chronic absenteeism at 26.8 percent, SITG! has looked for a way to help Ohio families, schools and community partners tackle chronic absenteeism.
The Network continues to grow. Heading into the 2024-25 school year, more than 100 districts across Ohio will participate in SITG! Impacting more than 385,000 students.
One of the new planning districts for the 2024-25 school year is the Parma City Schools district. They previously were a part of the Network as a learning district but have moved to become a planning district for this upcoming school year. Becoming a planning district gives a school district full access to the Network, including access to the campaign Playbook and printed materials.
Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction of Parma City Schools Amy Cruse said they decided to join the Network because of their intention to reduce chronic absenteeism in their district, with one of their core priorities as a school district to improve their attendance rate. Cruse said they value the positive and proactive approach that the Network takes to address chronic absenteeism, and as a district, want to provide their students with the opportunity to succeed in the classroom.
"A partnership with Stay in the Game! not only allows us to employ our love of the Cleveland Browns, but also to motivate our students to get to school on time every day," Cruse said. "We are excited about utilizing their resources and attendance Playbook with our district and building leadership."
New partnership with University Hospitals
In May 2024, the Network announced its first signature partnership with University Hospitals (UH). Through the partnership, the Browns Network and UH will work together to increase school attendance for students throughout Northeast Ohio.
In conjunction with the Browns' focus, UH offers essential support for the Browns' commitment to assisting the development, safety and growth of youth and high school football as well as other community outreach and initiatives in the region. Joining the Stay in the Game! Attendance Network directly connects UH with students to address attendance barriers and increase attendance within the Browns' Network in Northeast Ohio.
The Network's partnership with UH will also begin with a focus on the physical and mental health barriers to attendance.
When students miss school due to health-related reasons, they are missing out on crucial days of instruction that can develop into a barrier to their attendance.
However, schools are seeing a level of success when they partner with community providers to bring mental health counseling into the schools. Mentoring by school officials, volunteers or even older students has also been used as an effective method to create space for students.
"At University Hospitals, our commitment to community wellness is at the heart of everything we do," Chief Government & Community Relations Officer Heidi Gartland said. "This partnership is a testament to our dedication to making a tangible impact on the lives of children. As part of our Community Health Investment strategy, which prioritizes women and children as one of our three focus areas, we are proud to support programs that break down barriers and create opportunities for better futures. Together with the Stay in the Game! Attendance Network, we are fostering environments where children can thrive both physically and mentally."
As one of its early contributions as a signature partner, UH and the Network celebrated Teacher Appreciation Week by visiting Berea-Midpark High School to recognize 200 educations with treats catered through Cleveland Huddle restaurant Sweet Fix. They also visited Almira Pre-K-8 Academy of Cleveland Metropolitan School District to provide breakfast – catered by Cleveland Huddle restaurant No Fork – for over 70 educators.
"This partnership for us is really critical," Vice President of the Cleveland Browns Foundation Renee Harvey said. "We know that often there are many barriers keeping students from school, and a lot of those line up with health and mental health issues. And so, to have a partner like UH alongside us in this work is really going to help us move the needle faster."
