Vision
The District of Columbia values the highest quality education for all students attending public schools in the District. Show Up, Stand Out (SUSO) strives to ensure that all students in the District have the opportunity to access services and programs that enhance students’ learning experiences and engage students more holistically in their education.

Mission and Purpose
The SUSO grant is awarded to community-based organizations (CBOs) in the District to provide wraparound services that assist identified students and their families in addressing the practical, behavioral, financial, health, and other barriers that prevent them from attending school. Award recipients are expected to implement data-driven and evidence-based strategies to improve attendance for students that have been identified as at risk for child welfare or juvenile justice system involvement.

Through the SUSO program, CBOs should identify students and families as eligible for SUSO supports using the following student criteria:

1. the student is chronically truant (defined as the student missing more than 10 percent of all school days, including both excused and unexcused absences, in the previous school year),
2. the student is referred by a school for having five to nine total unexcused absences in the prior school, or
3. the student has three to five consecutive unexcused absences in their current school.

FY25 Show Up, Stand Out Schools

Grantee/Award Amount	School	Ward
Access Youth $800,000	John Hayden Johnson Middle School	8
	Ballou Senior High School	8
	Anacostia High School	8
	Charles Hart Middle School	8
	Kelly Miller Middle School	7
	Kramer Middle School	8
Georgia Avenue Family Support Collaborative $434,600	Charles H. Houston Elementary School	7
	W.B. Patterson Elementary School	8
	Abram Simon Elementary School	8
	Walker-Jones Education Campus	6
Latin American Youth Center $724,404	Francis L. Cardozo Education Campus (High School)	1
	Calvin Coolidge Senior High School	4
	Ida B. Wells Middle School	4
	Theodore Roosevelt Senior High School	4
	MacFarland Middle School	4

Goals and Objectives
The goal of the SUSO program is to reduce truancy and increase attendance rates for at-risk DC students.

The objectives of the SUSO program include:

• Supporting a culture of educational attainment and student engagement in schools to prevent unexcused absences and promote regular attendance.
• Responding with efficient resources in a student-centered, research-informed manner to students identified as eligible for the SUSO program.
• Collecting, evaluating, and utilizing data to understand the impact of activities for performance improvement purposes and to maximize collaboration among partners.
• Leveraging the expertise of community partners to build capacity to provide wraparound services to students, prior to escalation to the child welfare or juvenile justice system.

SUSO Application and Guidance

• Grant Initiative Continuation Application

SUSO Resources

• Attendance and Truancy Resources for Schools
• DC Attendance Report: 2022-23 School Year
  • District of Columbia Attendance Report
  • OSSE SY2022-23 Chronic Truancy Rates
• DC Public Schools Data Set - Attendance
• Attendance and Discipline Report 
• Attendance and Truancy Policy 
• Student Attendance: Every Day Counts!
  • Every Day Counts! Taskforce

Contact Us
For questions or additional information, please email [email protected].

The Show Up, Stand Out program is administered by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education’s (OSSE’s) Office of Special Populations and Programs within the Division of Strategic Funding for School Quality.