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ALBANY, GA --
In our Facebook Story of the Day you wanted to know how the Dougherty County School System is doing to combat absences during the beginning of the school year.

FOX 31 spoke with DCSS Public Relations Officer R.D. Harter who says every school day is just as important as the next and it is essential that all students be present during the first week.

Harter says Superintendent Joshua Murfree has flagged this as an issue and they have taken multiple steps to remind parents of the first day of school from making commercials offering booklets of information at the DCSS Administration Building.

Harter says although the first week focuses on familiarizing the class with their teacher and fellow classmates, students who skip these days miss a lesson that should only be done once before the class moves on. Harter adds the teacher has to postpone lessons in later weeks while they go back and reintroduce everyone to "new" students.

"For a student not to be there it just causes another mechanism to have to be brought into play, which is bringing students up that are behind in instruction."

As a way to start familiarizing kids as early as possible, Harter says DCSS has set up back to school nights at each school on Thursday, August 2nd.

The first day of classes is Monday August 6th and DCSS is hoping these reminders are enough to encourage every child to be there.