Redefine the chronic-absenteeism threshold, monitor attendance bins, and provide targeted academic catch-up supports to prior-year absentees¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 2 claims (2 for) · 1 study (1 associational), q2 · 1 of 1 report an effect size · 2 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The article recommends that school systems act on the persistence of absence effects across years: "School systems should consider redefining the threshold to deem absenteeism as 'chronic' in policy and practice." It also urges monitoring each attendance bin to prevent students moving into more detrimental bins, sharing prior-year attendance data with receiving schools at transitions, and prioritizing targeted academic interventions so absentees can catch up academically.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Attendance and achievement data must be available across school years to identify prior-year attendance patterns of incoming students.

Constraints¶

• Evidence comes from one large urban district that is predominantly low-income and Hispanic, which the authors state may limit generalizability to more heterogeneous settings.

Target Learners¶

• K-10 students with prior-year moderate to chronic absenteeism

Target Learning Goals¶

• Mathematics and reading achievement recovery at the start of the school year

Claims¶

• Each single prior-year absence is associated with a .010 to .016 SD decrease in fall mathematics starting achievement the following year [+W]
• Descriptively, prior-year chronically absent students achieved over half a standard deviation below their peers at the start of the following year [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Use school climate surveys, suspension rates, and chronic absenteeism as accountability indicators of school supports for SEL

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• King, G., & Jensen, N. (2020). Looking Back: How Prior-Year Attendance Impacts Starting Achievement. (The Center for School and Student Progress at NWEA Working Paper). https://www.nwea.org/research/publication/looking-back-how-prior-year-attendance-impacts-starting-achievement/