Sharon Latten Clark, a school leader and Louisiana state board of education member, understands better than most how crucial attendance is to student success.

A New Orleans native with 30 years of teaching and administrative experience, Clark worked at schools in Houston and Phoenix before returning home in 2002 to become director of Sophie B. Wright High School, a well-regarded charter school in New Orleans.

Since then, she’s served on a state task force aimed at improving student attendance and was elected to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education last year. She also heads a new truancy work group, which the Legislature formed last spring to study chronic absenteeism and provide policy recommendations to lawmakers, including whether to tie school funding to daily atten

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