An all-star cast descended on Denny International Middle School in West Seattle at midday Monday to send out a citywide message: Come to school more often! Absences are a bigger problem than you might think – more than a third of all Seattle Public Schools students were absent more than 10 times in the 2009-10 school year, and that’s a number the district is trying to reduce – since it’s a slippery slope to academic failure, and then dropping out of schoolentirely. So interim superintendent Dr. Susan Enfield and Mayor Mike McGinn teamed up to announce “Be Here, Get There,” which will offer prizes in school- and classroom-level competitions to encourage better attendance. For example – as detailed here – there’s an elementary-school competition this month with a Pagliacci Pizza party at stake. We recorded today’s Denny kickoff event in two video clips – above, the formal announcements, introduced by Denny principal Jeff Clark; below, the visitors dropped in on a Denny classroom, including pro-basketball players from Seattle, Jamal Crawford and Will Conroy:

Celebrities are an integral part of the campaign; students can sign up for celebrity wakeup calls by going here. Side note: The campaign does take pains to say there’s nothing wrong with staying home if you’re really sick – they’re just targeting absences for which there is really no good excuse.