About 6 million students (one out of seven) miss at least 15 days during the school year, according to the Department of Education. Valerie Marsh and Shaun Nelms offer four-research supported practices that have proven to boost attendance in real schools with real students.
Educators look on the bright side (and the not-so-bright side) to predict where public schools will make the most progress and where they will fall short in 2019.
Maryland released the results of its first-ever report card grading system for state schools. The system uses a 5-star rating system, factoring in progress in achieving English language proficiency for English learners, chronic absenteeism, preparation for post-secondary success, access to a well-rounded curriculum and graduation rates. Maryland released the results of its first-ever report card […]
Years ago, it was easy for districts to ignore what high average daily-attendance numbers can conceal: kids, sometimes lots of them, who miss weeks of school every year. The 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act has changed that calculus. For the first time, the law requires states to report chronic-absenteeism rates, and more than two-thirds of […]
Every school district in the country could reduce student absenteeism by 10 to 15 percent immediately—and it wouldn't even cost that much, Harvard Public Policy Professor Todd Rogers says. The intervention Rogers and his team developed, which he says researchers have validated in randomized experiments involving tens of thousands of students in more than a […]
Greene County Career Center (Ohio) Initiative: A truancy interventionist helps students cope with life challenges such as daycare for their children, homelessness and driving parents to chemotherapy appointments. Result: Truancy court referrals fell from 24 to one in just two years. Meriden Public Schools (Conn.) Initiative: District leaders asked school-based behavioral teams to monitor attendance. […]
Their surroundings may be idyllic, but educators in one Cape Cod district found themselves confronting the struggles experienced by systems across the nation. Barnstable Public Schools (5,300 students) had over several years seen an uptick in at-risk students and children with complex needs. This, along with promising research from organizations such as the Collaborative for […]
For the past two years, leaders at Muhlenberg South Middle School in Greenville, Kentucky, have been working to decrease the number of teacher absences as part of a wider effort to improve school culture. Although this has occurred during a financial crisis in which all Muhlenberg County School District staff took a 10 percent pay […]
