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. […]
Recently, I reread Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, and I was struck by how he viewed success in the United States. We forget that much of individual success is built on hard work with a focus on what we enjoy doing. We see successful people and call them "lucky." Gladwell's stories about success impacted me as an […]
Many educators have accepted that SEL curricula can have a positive impact on everything from student mental and physical well-being to academics, attendance and graduation rates. In fact, a February 2015 study from the Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, concluded that, on average, every dollar invested in SEL programming […]
Most schools have adopted emergency plans to respond to active shooter events. But in a new book, Amanda Klinger reports that these plans often don't address more likely situations such as severe weather, chemical spills or health crises. Most schools have adopted emergency plans to respond to active shooter events. But Amanda Klinger says these plans often […]
Leaders at Madison County Public Schools spent two years creating and improving tiered student support systems. For this work, we earned the Virginia Department of Education's Distinction in Implementation of Behavioral Interventions in 2017. We developed multilevel approaches to improve student academic performance, behavior and attendance. Teachers worked diligently to develop effective classroom systems by […]
Some students grow so accustomed to hearing their names mispronounced over and over again that they no longer correct the people who make the mistakes.
When Tiffany Anderson took over as superintendent of Jennings School District near St. Louis in 2012, she faced high poverty and low academic achievement. As part of the turnaround effort, she focused on building supports for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, particularly those in foster care who struggle with social-emotional trauma and frequent changes in […]
Districts are cultivating college and career readiness programs by allocating more resources to guide students, by building new partnerships and by focusing efforts beyond high school. Tennessee recently expanded and rebranded its statewide career and college readiness initiative as Tennessee Pathways, which now focuses on K8 in addition to high school. Part of that effort […]
