Call me cynical, but why the schools really care is because they are paid by how many students show up for homeroom each day.
Via The Seattle Times:
Nearly 17 percent of students in Washington are chronically absent from school, meaning that each misses at least 18 days of instruction. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how seriously that could hinder learning.
A new national report analyzing attendance rates across the country goes even further, noting that in 28 percent of Washington schools almost a third of all students are missing weeks of classwork, a rate that ranks as second-worst in the nation, after Alaska.
…
The reasons for chronic absence – which includes truancy, out-of-school suspensions and excused time away – range from bullying to health problems, transportation difficulties and the belief, particularly among parents of young students, that missing weeks of kindergarten won’t have much effect on future learning. (Forty-six percent of elementary schools here report high or extremely high rates of absenteeism among all students.)