Starting today, the Selma City School system is encouraging students and their parents to help maintain a perfect attendance rating for the school system, and we should all be on board.

A good campaign engages parents instead of blaming them, and this campaign is one of those.

Your children can suffer academically if they miss 10 percent of the school year, which comes out to 18 days. That can be just one day every two weeks, and that can sneak up on you.

Attendance should be taken seriously even in the beginning of a child’s school career.

Studies show that children who miss too many days in Kindergarten and first-grade can struggle academically in later years, according to Attendance Works.

This is also something to think about with Pre-K where parents can start developing habits of good attendance, and by middle or high school, sporadic absence is a sign that the student could drop out.

We encourage the students and their parents in the school system to take attendance seriously.