A tailgate celebration and Cleveland Muny Football League youth games will kick off the third year of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District's attendance campaign on Saturday.
Games will take place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Patrick Henry School, the James Ford Rhodes Campus and the John F. Kennedy campus.
The free event will include bike raffles and appearances from former students who went on the play in the NFL. Current CMSD football players will also be present.
All three sites have synthetic turf football fields installed by the Cleveland Browns, specifically to be used by high school football and soccer teams, Muny League teams and the community.
The "Get 2 School, You Can Make It!" attendance campaign has significantly reduced the number of students who miss more than ten days of school a year.
According to CMSD data, students who miss more than ten days of school score an average of 12 points lower on state reading tests and 15 points lower on math tests. They are also nine percent less likely to meet Ohio's Third Grade Reading Guarantee, and 34 percent less likely to graduate from high school.
