What a wonderful coming together of the community. Thank you to our partners and friends from across the region who came down to the Long Center to lend their support to the important message of improving student attendance.   The attendance rally was a great opportunity to issue the call to action for Missing School Matters for our region for this school year. We had superintendents and school partners from so many of our school district partners across the region: Austin, Bastrop, Del Valle, Elgin, Manor, Pflugerville, San Marcos, and Taylor ISD’s.  They were joined by business and industry leaders, community partners, parents and citizens.   Our warmest thanks to the Long Center for the Performing Arts for hosting us on their beautiful terrace! We are making great progress toward our goal of improving student attendance by 3 days per student year, in order to improve student achievement and return $34 in annual revenues to districts in our region.
We had a fabulous line-up of presenters and speakers.  Here are some of the photos from the event:

MSM poster
The Terrace of the Long Center

peterson brothers
Peterson Brothers Band

leslie
Leslie Wingo, Managing Partner of Sanders\Wingo opening the rally

yellow cab drivers
Austin Yellow Cab with the message of attendance!

football
UT Football greats Case McCoy (L) and Kasey Studdard (R) leading a cheer!

aisd attendance
Dr. Paul Cruz (AISD) surrounded by attendance “champions” from AISD

msm leaders
(L to R) Bobby Jenkins (ABC), Jeffrey Richard (ACC), Case McCoy (UT), Ashton Cumberbatch (Seton), Kasey Studdard (Texans), Ed Kargbo (Yellow Cab), Susan Dawson (E3), and Alex Gonzalez (Winstead PC)

student
Del Valle HS rally speaker, Ashley Esparaza interview with KXAN

The media coverage is coming in.  KXAN did a live feed from the Long Center starting at 6:45 a.m. promoting the rally, they did interviews with E3 Staff and our friend and champion of public education, Bobby Jenkins, President of ABC Home & Commercial.  Here is the link to the first interview at 6:45 a.m. (we were up with the chickens for this one!):
http://kxan.com/2014/09/04/e-3-alliance-issues-call-to-action-on-central-texas-school-attendance/
Community Impact Newspaper ran this wonderful story:
http://impactnews.com/austin-metro/rally-draws-attention-to-school-attendance-campaign/
Resources are available on www.missingschoolmatters.org website for you to download and share on the importance of attendance.    Please let us know if you need any materials to make any presentations on attendance at back-to-school nights, PTA meetings or if you place any PSAs and articles in newsletters and e-lists.
And finally, our deepest thanks to all of our partners and sponsors who made the rally possible:
ABC Home & Commercial
Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation
Austin ISD
Central Health
Costco
EZ Corp
IBM
The Long Center
Miss School Miss Out
St. David’s Foundation
Superior Health Plan
SXSWedu
Yellow Cab
Here is to starting the school year strong!
Khotan Shahbazi-Harmon
Director of Communications & Community Accountability
E3 Alliance
Office: (512) 223-7244
Mobile: (512) 968-3023
Email: kharmon@e3alliance.org
www.e3alliance.org