As LB Winston Reid and United States Secretary of Education Linda McMahon stood in front of a group of 45 students from The Intergenerational School, they congratulated them on their improved attendance for the start of the 2026-27 school year. They each emphasized the importance of continuing to attend school each day to support their education.
Then, Reid and Secretary McMahon had a special surprise for the students. They uncovered a table filled with custom Browns jerseys with each of the students' names on the nameplates.
"They lit up when we showed them the jerseys," Reid said. "They were like super excited because that was just like a cherry on top almost, so they were like ecstatic about it, so it was cool."
The Stay in the Game! Attendance Network (SITG!), in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education, celebrated 45 students from The Intergenerational School in Cleveland, Ohio, for their commitment to improved attendance. They received a tour of CrossCountry Mortgage Campus, as well as an afternoon of hands-on football activities.
"It's so terrific to see sport now combined with these kids, they can relate to sport," Secretary McMahon said. "Every single one of them is a Browns fan, but those kids are here today because they've had such good attendance records. The theme of today is Stay in the Game and attendance because chronic absenteeism is a problem across the country, and I'm really proud to see how it's being addressed here."
The Stay in the Game! Attendance Network was first launched in 2019 by the Cleveland Browns Foundation and Ohio Department of Education and Workforce and is now managed by Battelle. Working to reduce chronic absenteeism, the Network currently partners with 201 districts and impacts 611,000 students across Ohio.
School districts across Ohio are invited to participate in Stay in the Game! at no cost to the district. As a member of SITG!, districts receive access to an online campaign playbook to help create a localized, data-informed attendance campaign. To complement their strategy, the districts receive printed, Browns-branded campaign materials as well as opportunities to engage with the team through incentive and recognition opportunities like player and mascot visits, gameday experiences and tickets.
Incentives include materials such as personalized postcards, video messages, classroom visits from players and mascots and community improvement projects like turf field installments that are incorporated into district attendance plans to get students excited about attending school and learning.
Since joining the Network in 2023, The Intergenerational School has worked to decline its chronic absenteeism among students. They received a moment of recognition for those 45 students during Attendance Awareness Month in September.
"We have students out here from kindergarten through eighth grade who are being celebrated for starting the school year off on a positive note with very strong and improved attendance," said Renee Harvey, Browns Vice President of Community Impact and Foundation. "Stay in the Game! is important all year round, but making sure our students get off to a positive start during the month of September, during Attendance Awareness Month, is incredibly important. It sets the stage for those continual good habits."
School attendance is a predictor of student success in the classroom and beyond. Students are 3.9x more likely to read on grade level by the end of third grade if they are not chronically absent, and 12x more likely to graduate from high school on time if they are not chronically absent.
"It's a chronic problem. Education is about building blocks," Secretary McMahon said. "Every day you're building, especially math, and if you miss a day here, two days per week, you're really behind and it's hard really to catch up."
For Reid, who shared with the students the importance of his own education and how his education played a factor in reaching the NFL, his parents encouraged him to attend school and maintain solid grades. By spending time with the students from The Intergenerational School and highlighting their improved attendance, Reid wanted to provide a similar message for the students.
"Just to be a person that they can look up to and also letting them know how important attendance is and education," Reid said.
While the students were recognized during Attendance Awareness Month in September, SITG!'s efforts to decrease chronic absenteeism continue throughout the entire year and across the state. Those efforts – and the dedication by schools who are a part of the Network – are yielding positive results. The chronic absenteeism rate statewide in 2024-2025 was 25.1 percent and decreased in 2025-26 to 23.9 percent. This 1.2 percentage point decline represents an additional 3.7 million hours of learning for Ohio students.
Over the past two years, the Intergenerational School has seen a decline in its chronic absenteeism rates. In 2023-24, they were 40.6 percent chronically absent and in 2025-26, they decreased to 32.8 percent – a 7.8 percent decrease. Youngstown Community School reduced its chronic absenteeism rate from 40.7 percent in 2025 to 22.4 percent in 2026, while Caldwell Exempted Village reduced its chronic absenteeism rate from 25.10 percent in 2024-25 to 13.8 percent in 2025-26.
"It's great that the Cleveland Browns know it's important, but the partnership between the Cleveland Browns, the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, and with a great Speaker at the top of (Ohio's) state government of Governor DeWine speaking about this, that's where it really matters for children," Assistant Secretary for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education Kirsten Baesler said. "Teachers can talk all day about the importance of attendance, but when their governor steps up, their director of education steps up, and the Cleveland Browns step up and say this is important, kids really are feeling supported, and they understand how important it is to show up and stay in the game."
