{"id":33511,"date":"2025-03-13T13:23:37","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T13:23:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookcreator.com\/?p=33511"},"modified":"2025-04-14T16:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T16:03:09","slug":"tackling-absenteeism-with-creative-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookcreator.com\/2025\/03\/tackling-absenteeism-with-creative-agency\/","title":{"rendered":"Tackling Absenteeism with Creative Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Partner<\/span>
How Rockford 205 leverages Book Creator to engage students with powerfully individual and highly engaging learning experiences.<\/div>

R<\/span>ockford 205 is a public school district in Illinois, home to over 27,000 students and almost 2,000 educators. Like many school districts across the country, Rockford has seen concerning levels of student absenteeism. The Rockford Educational Technology team is putting a dent in those growing numbers by curating creativity in the classroom with Book Creator.<\/p>\n\n

Understanding student absenteeism: causes and impact<\/h2>\n

Absenteeism may seem simple,\u00a0 but it is chronic when a student is missing 10% or more of the school year.\u00a0 In the 2022-2023 school year, the US Department of Education reported<\/a> that the rate of chronic absenteeism was 28%.<\/p>\n

As Susan Uram, the Director of Educational Technology<\/strong> says, there can be a tendency for people to think students just \u201cdon't want to go because it's boring.\u201d Since states began tracking absentee rates a few years ago, districts and Departments of Education have been able to dig deeper into the data on why this could be happening to students across the states.<\/p>\n

Research from the US Department of Education found that students of diverse races and ethnic backgrounds are more likely to experience chronic absenteeism. Students with disabilities are also 36% more likely to experience chronic absenteeism than students without disabilities. For students who are English learners, they are 20% more likely to experience it than non-English learners. \u201cThey do not feel like they see themselves as an important part of the community,\u201d explains Susan. Students who may already feel intimidated by the classroom are struggling to see themselves reflected in the content and work put in front of them.<\/p>\n

As the Director of Educational Technology, Susan saw how the digital tools used in the classroom can play a role in tackling absenteeism in Rockford schools. By opting to use self-differentiating and highly personalizable creation tools like Book Creator, Rockford educators can ensure every student has access to learning which is fun, engaging, and motivating for them. For Susan, this started with fostering digitally confident teachers.<\/p>\n\n

Implementing Book Creator in Rockford 205 Schools<\/h2>\n

Teachers at Rockford 205 had been using Book Creator independently for years before the district was introduced to the Book Creator Partnerships team. \u201cThere were some teachers, sort of talking about it,\u201d explains Susan. While Susan heard some talk around the district, the EdTech team were also exposed to it when they saw it at conferences. It wasn\u2019t until 2022, when they received some complementary premium licenses via a Google Bonus scheme, that the magic of Book Creator truly started to grow in this district.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe integration has been super easy,\u201d says Susan. When the district first began exploring Book Creator, they focused on just a handful of teachers as a way of piloting the program. After a successful roll-out, the district moved to a domain license, giving access to every single teacher and student. This made administration easier for Susan and her team, as they \u201cdon't have to manage anything, or worry about who has access and who doesn't.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catherine Frank, a Teacher Success Manager here at Book Creator, has been supporting Rockford 205 from the beginning of this partnership. \u201cCatherine is super responsive,\u201d Susan explains, \u201cshe keeps us up to speed on what's new, what's changing, that kind of stuff. But at the same time, she's not overbearing\u2026 she's just the right amount of helpful.\u201d Finding a balance with Catherine\u2019s mentorship and Susan\u2019s in-house team of specialists and coaches has been integral to a successful roll-out of Book Creator, and the constant cycle of onboarding, training, and improving which goes on throughout teacher development.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that we overlook and maybe take for granted is teacher capacity in order to learn and integrate,\u201d says Susan, \u201cWe want them to be using technology in a meaningful way, but unless they know what the platform can do then they will struggle to do this\u201d. Liaising with Catherine, the district first organized some \u2018Getting Started with Book Creator\u2019 sessions, which allowed all teachers to get to grips with the essentials of Book Creator. From there, they organized deeper dive training for particular departments, like ESL.<\/p>\n

This gave Susan and her team the opportunity to spend some time digging into their own data on teacher usage, via their Book Creator Admin Dashboard. She tells us that during those early months with Book Creator, they relied on those statistics to give them more understanding of how the tool was being used. \u201cWhat's going on? Who's logging in? and how are people making things?\u201d are just some of the questions the team focused on, so they could better understand where their teachers could use more help.<\/p>\n

Once that foundational level of knowledge had spread across the district, Susan found that Book Creator was spreading fast through word of mouth, and that it is still a buzz word in the district today. \u201cI was just with some teachers yesterday, and this one said, \u2018look at what I've made in Book Creator.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n

The role of teacher training in edTech adoption<\/h2>\n

Along their journey integrating Book Creator into the district, Susan made a point of honoring her teachers\u2019 capacity for new tools, and never assuming what they may or may not already know or have time for. With almost 200 new teachers joining Rockford 205 each year, this is something she continues to do with those new recruits.<\/p>\n

She has found that, especially with new teachers, there can sometimes be a tendency to assume that they already have a wealth of technical knowledge. \u201c[We\u2019re] under the assumption that they're young, and they know how to use technology \u2014 but they don't,\u201d says Susan. \u201cThere is nothing in any of the teacher preparation programs with our new teachers that would indicate they're getting much more in-depth pedagogy around technology.\u201d This, along with things like teacher burnout and over-burdened schedules, can mean teachers are left behind by new technologies they don\u2019t have time to learn, or simply feel that learning something new will be too challenging.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do we get the teacher to plan in a meaningful way, but also to understand the tool well enough to be able to do that?\u201d Understanding all the different directions a teacher\u2019s time and energy are pulled in were an important step for Susan and her team to create appropriate training for their teachers. After all, if teachers do not understand how to use a product to create highly engaging lessons, then it is less likely that the students will have that opportunity also. By working with Catherine, and various teams across the district, the Rockford EdTech team were able to offer a variety of professional development opportunities for Book Creator so teachers can learn how to use it confidently.<\/p><\/div>

It's one stop shopping for me.<\/div>