25% of Elkhart County students miss too much school. This can lead to problems with reading on grade level, high school graduation rates, and even the amount of income a student can expect to make throughout their lifetime. Anna Sawatzky, director of The SOURCE, a system of care housed at Oaklawn, said it doesn’t just impact the students who are absent.
“It affects everybody in the classroom,” Sawatzky said. “Even for kids who are there, they are affected by high rates of absence.”
Be Present, Be Your Future Today is a local campaign launched by The SOURCE that focuses on trying to undo a set of beliefs that became prominent during the pandemic, that absence is acceptable, and that learning from home has the same benefits as being in school.
“The messaging really changed during COVID,” Sawatzky said. “The messaging became to some extent, that this is optional. It’s ok to tune in online. If you’re not feeling well, don’t come in. Reversing that messaging has been tough, and that’s one thing we hope this campaign will do. We hope it will provide an antidote to some of what we, professionals, were putting out during COVID, which was to make it feel a little more optional.”
Be Present, Be Your Future Today was developed with the help of representatives from all seven of Elkhart County’s public schools and numerous community partners and will reach students through billboards, posters, banners, mailers, yard signs and a video. Each school district will be able to personalize their version of the campaign, including who will be the representative on the material.
“Each of the schools chose their ‘Be’ something,” Sawatzky said. “Elkhart Community Schools, for example, has chosen ‘Be Driven, Be Your Future’ as its personalized campaign, and they chose their head football coach as their profile representative.”
The measure of success for the campaign will be the absence numbers of the current school year. If absences drop, the campaign will be viewed as a success.
