Improving School Attendance through Collaboration

Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR)

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Improving School Attendance through Collaboration: A Catalyst for Community Involvement and Change Joshua Childs & Ain A. Grooms To cite this article: Joshua Childs & Ain A. Grooms (2018): Improving School Attendance through Collaboration: A Catalyst for Community Involvement and Change, Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR), DOI: 10.1080/10824669.2018.1439751 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10824669.2018.1439751

Published online: 01 Mar 2018.

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JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR STUDENTS PLACED AT RISK (JESPAR) https://doi.org/10.1080/10824669.2018.1439751

Improving School Attendance through Collaboration: A Catalyst for Community Involvement and Change Joshua Childsa and Ain A. Groomsb a

University of Texas at Austin; bUniversity of Iowa

ABSTRACT

Chronic absenteeism is often referred to as a problem hidden in plain sight (Chang & Romero, 2008). In recent years, more communities around the United States have been intentional on improving student attendance and limiting the impact of chronic absenteeism. Using qualitative interviews, we sought to understand how one community was implementing strategies to engage a variety of stakeholders in an effort to decrease chronic absenteeism. Findings suggest that when it comes to increasing attendance, districts and schools should consider partnering with organizations to leverage their expertise and knowledge. This article concludes with implications for policy and practice, and concludes with a research framework for studying solutions and interventions around chronic absenteeism.

Introduction According to the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights [OCR] (2017), 6.7 million children were chronically absent during the 2013–2014 school year. This accounts for 14% of all children nationwide (US Department of Education [US DOE], 2017). Few would argue with the notion that this poor attendance is associated with adverse outcomes. Students who fail to show up to school consistently are at a higher risk for retention and dropping out, correlated to even more social, economic and health problems in adulthood (Sheldon & Epstein, 2004). While quite troubling, these findings are not surprising. Instruction cannot be delivered to students who are not present in their classrooms. Educators are faced with a significant challenge as they attempt to unravel the complex nature of absenteeism. The urgency to resolve these attendance issues intensifies as students near and surpass compulsory attendance age while in high school. Every day missed in school is detrimental toward a child’s development. Children who do not attend school on a regular basis more often choose unproductive activities that lead to delinquency and affect the community as well as the individual (Cole, 2011). Numerous studies have measured the impact of chronic absenteeism on student performance, and these studies have shown a correlation between achievement and attendance (Gottfried, 2017; Roby, 2004). The data are clear: students do better in school if they attend school, especially in high school as absenteeism is a strong predictor of academic outcomes in grades 9–12 (Gottfried, 2011a; Gottfried, 2011b). Allensworth and Easton (2007) revealed that ninth grade attendance could be used to predict four-year high school graduation outcomes with 90 percent accuracy for nearly 25,000 students in Chicago Public Schools. OCR defines chronically absent children as those missing at least 15 days of school during a school year; however, alternate definitions define chronic absenteeism as students missing 10% or more (at CONTACT Joshua Childs [email protected] Department of Educational Leadership and Policy, University of Texas at Austin, George I. Sanchez Building, 3rd Floor, Suite 374, 1912 Speedway D5400, Austin, TX 78712-1604. © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

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least 18 days) of the school year for any reason (Chang & Romero, 2008). For the purposes of this article, and based on state level data, we describe chronic absenteeism as missing 10% of the school year. A student who is chronically absent can miss school for any reason; as truancy11, excused absences, and suspensions are all within the definition of a student missing school frequently. Of the 6.7 million chronically absent children, as defined by OCR (2017), 47% were White, 25% were Hispanic, and 20% were Black. Only 8% of chronically absent students were English Language Learners. When compared across racial groups, however, absentee rates are higher among students of color than among White students (US DOE, 2017): while 13% of all White children are chronically absent, 23% of American Indian, 21% of Pacific Islander, 17% of Black, and 14% of Hispanic students are chronically absent. Asian students have the lowest absenteeism rates across all student groups of any race, at 7%. Across all racial groups, as students progress through elementary school and into middle and high school, the likelihood of absenteeism increases. Approximately 10% of all elementary school students are chronically absent increasing to almost 20% of high school students (US DOE, 2017). The circumstances prompting students to miss school change as they advance through the grades, including and especially due to developmental changes, parental influences, and social factors, such as mental and physical health, and neighborhood context (Gottfried, 2014). The purpose of this study is to explore the strategies implemented within a community-led effort to improve school attendance in a large, urban, southern school district. These strategies included convening local partners, using data to highlight the importance of school attendance, and implementing a national mentoring model specifically oriented towards chronically absent students. We sought to understand the ways in which individuals and organizations were involved in these efforts to decrease chronic absenteeism in local schools. Specifically, we ask the following research questions: 1. In what ways are individuals and organizations in Eero County involved in the implementation of an attendance initiative? 2. How is a national mentoring model being implemented in targeted schools within the district? We begin the manuscript by outlining some of the traditional approaches to improving school attendance, and offer a conceptual framework that serves as the foundation for the study and future research directions. We detail our research approach and analysis, followed by a discussion of our findings. We end the article with implications for research, policy, and practice.

Traditional approaches to addressing chronic absenteeism The negative impacts of chronic absenteeism are far-reaching. Research has established strong correlations between chronic absenteeism and poor academic performance, substance abuse, criminal behavior, teen pregnancy, dropping out and future unemployment (Kearney, 2008; Sheldon & Epstein, 2004). Simply mandating that students attend school has not been sufficient in improving attendance. While the effects of missing school are evident, the sources of absenteeism can be quite complex, presenting a significant challenge to educators. Even when students’ absences are permissible according to policy (for example, parental excuse, doctor’s appointment, sports/extracurricular activities), they are not immune from the negative consequences of missing school. There has been a dearth of research that has examined attendance interventions (Sutphen, Ford, & Flaherty, 2010). In their comprehensive literature review on attendance interventions, Sutphen et al. (2010) discovered only 16 peer-reviewed research studies examining attendance interventions between 1990 and 2007, with only eight of those studies utilizing group comparison designs and two reporting effect size data. There was no consistent definition of poor attendance or truancy established across these identified studies. The causes of chronic absenteeism are pervasive societal problems and have challenged educators and policymakers to find ways to reduce its impact on students. In this section, we outline three traditional approaches to improving school attendance—attendance tracking and 1

Truancy is defined as missing school for an unexcused reason, such as skipping

JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR STUDENTS PLACED AT RISK (JESPAR)

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classification, criminalization, and social-emotional interventions—as a way to organize the research literature about the types of interventions and monitoring related to school attendance. It is from this review of the literature that we found the need to examine further community-led efforts to address chronic absenteeism. Attendance tracking and classification Attendance tracking is inconsistent across school districts throughout the United States, further complicating the challenge to educators (Henry, 2007). Many districts look strictly at average daily attendance, which is the total number of days of attendance for all students in a school divided by the total number of school days in a given period. Using average daily attendance as a metric can actually mask chronically absent students that are within the school (Chang & Romero, 2008). Bruner, Discher, and Chang (2011) found that even in a school of 200 students with a 95 percent average daily attendance, 30 percent (or 60) of the students could be missing nearly a month of school and be considered chronically absent, yet would be overlooked in the data. Tracking absenteeism, specifically at the secondary level, is also complicated by the compulsory attendance age. Students across the nation are required to attend school until they reach 16, 17 or 18 years old, depending on the state (Snyder & Dillow, 2013). In most cases, students are still enrolled in high school when they exceed this compulsory age. Consequently, they can choose to no longer attend (or drop out) without penalty. It may appear that absentee rates are lower in high schools because a portion of these chronically absent students have opted to legally drop out and their absenteeism is no longer reported (Gottfried, 2013). Classifying absences as excused or unexcused can also confound the absenteeism issue. For example, in North Carolina, ten types of absences are considered valid, lawful excuses for nonattendance: illness or injury, quarantine, death in the immediate family, medical or dental appointments, court proceedings, religious observance, educational opportunity, local school board policy, absence related to deployment, and child care for the child of whom the student is the parent or legal guardian (NCDPI, 2014). Absences considered to be excused according to an established list of conditions such as this may not be seen as problematic. However, the student is missing classroom instruction regardless of the reason. A study by Eaton et al. (2008) revealed that school absenteeism with and without permission is associated with negative risk behaviors. They found that students who were absent with permission had significantly higher odds of engaging in 25 of 55 risk behaviors when compared to students who were not absent (Eaton et al., 2008). Criminalization Starting in the mid-1990s, the attention to crime and criminal activity was met with efforts to address crime reduction at an earlier age, therefore putting emphasis on adolescent behavior and juvenile crime (McClusky et al., 2004). As such, schools and districts around the U.S. began implementing zero-tolerance policies to combat adolescent behavioral problems. These policies focused on eliminating students who compromised the learning environment by physically restricting them from it (Monahan, VanDerhei, Bechtold, & Cauffman, 2014). These policy efforts were designed and implemented to curb undesirable behaviors such as illicit activities, dress code violations, class skipping, and tardiness to name a few. As schools and districts began to implement zero-tolerance policies, suspensions and expulsions became more frequent (Monahan et al., 2014). Students who missed school are therefore prevented from attending school or forced to sit in an alternative learning environment away from their normal educational setting (Kearney, 2008; Monahan et al., 2014). Moreover, the percentage of truancy cases handled in U.S. juvenile courts increased by 69 percent from 1995 to 2004 (Stahl, n.d.) as a result of strict enforcement of compulsory attendance policies. The criminalization of school attendance has met considerable pushback due to its limited efficacy in reducing absenteeism and its unintended negative consequences. The research has shown that zerotolerance policies that are exclusively punitive and focus on criminalizing students are not effective in

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improving attendance (Byer & Kuhn, 2003). On the contrary, these approaches and policies increase the likelihood of students being arrested, thereby leading students to miss even more school (Monahan et al., 2014). Even some mandatory intervention programs designed to provide education, care, and social services will implement criminal justice-type methods to deter missing school (Ovink, 2011). Ovink (2011) noted that many of these intervention programs focus on supervision, discipline, and a “crime control paradigm” that includes police detaining students who are not at school. Instead of focusing on why students miss school or having caring adults engage with students to understand their reasons for missing school, punishing students is often the automatic response by districts and communities around the country (Ovink, 2011). In recent years, criminologists and developmental psychologists have posited that the criminalization of missing school in the adolescent years leads to later adult criminality (Jones & Lovrich, 2011), with some directly implicating programs using punitive and sanction-oriented approaches (Byer & Kuhn, 2003; Sutphen et al., 2010). Social-emotional interventions While criminalization has been a prominent approach to curbing chronic absenteeism since the mid1990s (McCluskey et al., 2004), other efforts to improve attendance have focused on providing socialemotional supports to students who exhibit recurring school attendance problems. Many schools and districts have developed social-emotional intervention programs to address their chronic absenteeism problem. Interventions such as School Attendance Review Boards (SARBs), Check & Connect, individual counseling, peer counseling, family therapy, behavioral management, case management services, or tutoring services aim to provide specific support to students to prevent absenteeism (John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities, 2012; Tanner-Smith & Wilson, 2013). Other common school-based strategies include after- school enrichment activities, engaging teachers in absenteeism reduction, tutorial programs, and structured communications with parents (Chapman & Sawyer, 2001; Grier & Peterson, 2005; Hunt & Hopko, 2009; Newsome, 2004). Years of research evidence exist that have investigated the intersection of social-emotional supports and attendance. Hunt & Hopko (2009) described social-emotional support programs that focus on attendance as “intensive work with students and parents to minimize environmental factors contributing to truant behavior and associated with academic problems” (p. 550). Epstein and Sheldon (2002) found that rewarding students for improved attendance, communicating directly with parents/guardians of absent students, providing a specific contact person for families, providing workshops for parents/guardians on improving their student’s attendance, and after-school programs were most effective at improving absenteeism rates. Counseling sessions with both families and students have also been used to curb chronic absenteeism (Railsback, 2004; Gerrard, Burhans, & Fair, 2003; Sheverbush, Smith, & DeGruson, 2000). Programs designed to help students transition through school also assist in helping to address chronic absenteeism. School transitions occur when students move to a different level of schooling, with the most common school transitions happening between elementary-to-middle school and middle-to-high school. These major childhood transitions have been associated with increases in emotional, academic, behavioral, and attendance difficulties (Eccles et al., 1993; Lehr, Sinclair, & Christenson, 2004). Socio-emotional programs have been designed to help students attend school regularly and offer a multi-faceted approach focusing on individualized interventions and relationship building that hopefully facilitates improved attendance (Lehr et al., 2004). Local partnership models Since 2010, at least twenty communities in the United States have implemented a local partnership model focused specifically on chronic absenteeism. These communities have undertaken efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism by initiating a public health awareness campaign (Austin, Texas), a cross-sector program to improve public housing complexes (San Francisco, CA), and improving kindergarten readiness and enrollment (Hartford, CT). These examples highlight how


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in recent years communities have made concentrated efforts to improve their school attendance, use data to make policy decisions, and rely on a variety of stakeholders in order to carry out strategies and policies. A popular partnership model, Check & Connect, is an evidence-based dropout prevention program that trains mentors to engages students to help them improve attendance, decrease behavioral referrals, and keep them on track to graduate (Anderson, Christenson, Sinclair, & Lehr, 2004). In 2013, the United Way of Allegheny County launched the Be There Campaign in an effort to reach over 12,000 students across the Pittsburgh region on the importance of attending school every day (Childs, 2017). An important component of the Be There Campaign is a comprehensive data sharing agreement between local school districts and the Allegheny County Department of Human Services that allowed the use and integration of data between school-level data and social services data (Dietrick, Ye, Childs, & Zhang, 2015). The data provided information on community and school related outcomes that influenced school attendance. The Be There Campaign used the data to inform their messaging campaign for parents and community members about the importance of school attendance, create school-based interventions, and inform policy leaders about changes that should be implemented to improve school attendance.

Conceptual framework In our study, we found that organizations worked together to address chronic absenteeism in Eero Public Schools. To examine the extent organizations were working collaboratively, an inter-organizational networks framework guided our research study (Russell, Meredith, Childs, Stein, & Prine, 2015). The inter-organizational networks framework provided insight on how organizations were involved in a collaborative effort to improve student attendance within the district. Inter-organizational networks emphasize a departure from traditional problem-solving methods, and focus on taking advantage of a broader set of resources and increased capacity as a result of organizations joining together (Weber & Khademian, 2008). Networks facilitate interactive processes that can result in shared resources, activities, expertise, and relations that would be harder to achieve by any one organization operating in isolation (Bryson, Crosby, & Stone, 2006). As educational improvement has become a moral imperative for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners (Dantley, 2003), it is even more evident that organizations cannot address the complex issues facing students in schools alone (Green, 2017; Bryson et al, 2006; Russell et al., 2015). As more communities take collective action to improving school attendance, we believe that examining the myriad approaches that these communities are using through an inter-organizational framework can help in illuminating the ways in which organizations and individuals are working together. Connections within and across organizations help to determine the efficacy of a network (Russell et al., 2015). Connections can reveal the strength of ties among organizations, what organizations serve as a broker between organizations, and whether certain organizations that should be connected are not due to various constraints that could exist within the network. The strength of networks is their ability to facilitate collective action in solving complex issues (Agranoff & McGuire, 2004; Goldsmith & Eggers, 2004; Wohlstetter et. al, 2005). Researchers have also documented the potential of networks to produce outcomes that could lead to stronger collaboration and interactions, and desired outcomes that were not possible by organizations operating independently (Provan & Kenis, 2008). Provan and Lemaire (2012) found that a benefit of networks was in their ability to exert pressure and advocate around specific agendas due to the greater political clout and community reach that are a result of the diversity and numbers of organizations within the network. Milward and Provan (1998) discussed that regardless of the purpose of a network, activities undertaken during the formation and growth of the network will determine network effectiveness. This includes the network’s level of resources, the network’s ability to carry its load within those resources, and the quality of the services the network is able to deliver. If required to do more than its capacity or its resources can handle, a network can become ineffective. Given its focus on addressing complex social problems, the inter-organizational network

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framework highlights how, in this case, organizations can facilitate a community-led effort to decrease chronic absenteeism in targeted schools.

Data and methods This study took place in Eero Public Schools (a pseudonym), a large school district located in Central Texas. Texas educates over 5 million students each year, and Eero Public Schools (EPS) has over 70,000 students. Twelve percent of Texas students were chronically absent during the 2013–2014 school year, and 13% of EPS students were chronically absent during that same year (OCR, 2017). This follows a trend within Central Texas where more students are chronically absent than in any other part of the state (Wiseman & Dawson, 2015). Similar to other localities across the U.S., students in Pre-K and high school in EPS are more likely to be chronically absent. While Central Texas boasts a high education achievement of White students, hidden is a large gap between more affluent White students and a number of lower income Hispanic and Black students that have increased in student population in recent years. Almost half of all students in Central Texas will not enroll into postsecondary institutions. As the labor economy has grown over the past decade in Central Texas, it has become an increasingly important within EPS to graduate students and ensure that their students are college and career ready. In 2015, the Obama Administration launched a national initiative to support reducing chronic absenteeism in schools and districts. Called “Every Student, Every Day.” A component of the administration’s My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) program, this effort was devised to support community interventions that addressed the root causes of chronic absenteeism. The Success Mentors program, one part of MBK, is an evidence-based strategy used to engage communities in addressing chronic absenteeism and increasing the number of students who attended school daily. Modeled after the John Hopkins University Success Mentors program that was launched in New York City (Balfanz & Byrnes, 2013), the core feature of the initiative was to connect chronically absent students with dedicated mentors who would be engaged in multiple facets of a student’s daily life. Thirty communities across the country took up the challenge of trying to implement to scale the Success Mentors program, including EPS. The Success Mentors program implemented within EPS included using internal mentors, such as teachers, support staff, and leaders within school buildings, along with volunteer mentors from external partners. Mentors met with students each week to build relationships, support their academic and personal success, influence regular school attendance, and if a student missed school to find out the reasons why the student was absent. EPS officials reported that the cost for implementing Success Mentors was low because they were able to leverage current partnerships with organizations and the community in order to support and sustain the initiative. At the time of data collection, 6th and 9th grade chronically absent students were the only students paired with mentors. Students at these grade levels were selected as they represented important transitions within EPS, as students in these grades were more than likely to be in new buildings and adjusting to a different course schedule than was offered at either their elementary or middle school the year prior.

Data collection An exploratory qualitative approach was used to answer the research questions. Formal and informal interviews with key stakeholders involved or informed on the initiative were conducted. Purposeful sampling was used in this study for data collection, as interviewees had knowledge of the initiative and in support of its rollout within EPS. We conducted semistructured interviews between January 2016 and May 2017 with principals, nonprofit staff, community members, district administrators, and parent interviews for a total of 25 interviews. However, we centrally drew on 13 school and community leader’s interviews (see Table 1) and use the remaining 12 interviews to further flesh out findings (Green, 2015). These 13 participants were selected because they were either directly involved in the implementation of the initiative, held formal leadership positions within EPS, worked with or had their own students in EPS, and were actively involved in education reform within EPS and Central Texas.


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Table 1. Interviewee names and date of interview. Interviewee Designation (Name) Kathy Travis Tracy Viki Kevin Julie Curtis Emily Jessica Seth Courtney Brenda Victor

Occupation/Profession

Organization

Date of Interview

High School Principal Middle School Principal High School Principal Middle School Principal Program Manager Program Manager Data Manager Data Analyst Program Manager Philanthropist Retired Educator Curriculum Program Head Parent of a 9th grade student

Eero Public Schools Eero Public Schools Eero Public Schools Eero Public Schools Metro Partnership Alliance for Eero County Metro Partnership Metro Partnership Leadership Eero County Known donor who resides in Eero County Resides in Eero County Eero Public Schools Child is a student in Eero Public Schools

October 2016 November 2016 March 2017 April 2017 October 2016 October 2016 February 2017 March 2017 May 2017 March 2017 March 2017 March 2017 May 2016

Interviews were digitally recorded, and we asked questions about how the community got involved with the attendance initiative, the role of various organizations, and the importance of addressing and decreasing the impact of chronic absenteeism within EPS. Observations and document analysis. We also observed meetings, community convenings, and leadership gatherings that centered on school attendance. At each of the observations, detailed notes were taken and memos were created to capture key data points and interactions that took place. Additionally, we examined meeting minutes and agendas, PowerPoint presentations, policy briefs, community reports, advertisements, and documents posted to various organizations’ websites related to school attendance. Interviews ranged in length from 45 to 90 minutes. We used a semi-structured interview protocol with open-ended questions (Patton, 1990). Two interview protocols were used: one for principals and another for key stakeholders. All interview protocols included questions about their respective organization’s work around attendance, types of resources their organization was offering to the attendance initiative, and with whom they were working as it related to attendance efforts. The interview protocol for principals included questions related to chronic absenteeism within their own school, their own interventions that they have used to address chronic absenteeism previously, and the ways in which parents and students are involved in improving attendance at their school. When possible, informal interviews occurred directly after stakeholder meetings, visits to schools, or meetings that were related to education initiatives within the district. Data analysis All interviews were audiotaped and then transcribed verbatim. Member checking (Creswell, 2007) was used to reduce transcription errors, which involved listening to audio files and checking against the written transcripts and then having participants review their transcripts if they were willing to. Member checking also consisted of verifying understandings during interviews and confirmation that written text was appropriate with the participants. The digitally recorded interviews served as the data for cording. Transcripts were uploaded into DeDoose software for computer-assisted data analysis (Maietta, 2008). In DeDoose, we used thematic analysis (Ayrnes, 2008). Thematic analysis involves iterations of coding, reducing codes into themes, analyzing and reporting themes within the data, and then data analysis that refines the coding structure and theme (Ayres, 2008; Braun & Clarke, 2006; Lee et al., 2017). An inductive and data-driven approach was used to ground the thematic analysis to encode the qualitative information (Boyatzis, 1998). Open codes were applied to the interview texts. During the coding process, codes were applied to various kinds of occurrences, for instance, relationships to other organizations (or individuals) that specifically related to improving school attendance. A list of 12 codes was created, and a memo was generated to describe the codes and applicable theories to those

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codes (Groenewald, 2008). Throughout the study, the research team independently analyzed the data to ensure that there was trustworthiness of the findings. During and after data collection, the research team would compare notes and debrief to increase the credibility of the research findings. Triangulation of the data was used to decrease the biases existing within the research team and confirm the findings.

Findings Data analysis revealed three major strategies that were considered important for the rollout of the school attendance initiative in Eero Public Schools (EPS). These strategies were: a) convening local partners committed to improving school attendance, b) using data to highlight the importance of school attendance, and c) the implementation of a national mentoring model in targeted schools. Convening local partners In a district the size of EPS, connecting organizations and individuals who were invested in educational improvement was an important aspect of the attendance work that would take place within EPS. EPS had a history of initiating and implementing various education reforms, but not to the extent to which they wanted to involve the entire community as much as possible in addressing what it identified as one of the most critical problems ailing the district. Curtis, a data manager for Metro Partnership, an organization that provides data analytics and expertise on education throughout Central Texas, offered insight on why convening local partners was a novel endeavor for EPS. Curtis said “in communities of similar size to us, you often see the same set of strategies implemented by a small subset of district actors, and we didn’t want that to be the case here.” Convening local partners was a way to get more of the community involved in tackling chronic absenteeism, and to bring awareness to how chronic absenteeism was impacting students in EPS. Alliance for Eero County was known throughout the community as being a convening organization, one that often brought many organizations together to tackle societal issues as they arose within the community. Julie, a program manager for Alliance for Eero County, stated: We have monthly meetings with community partners and networking meetings to think strategically about what can be done to get more students to come to school. And, like I said, they, you know in my families and experience once you have someone that’s giving attention to something and really raising the issue and presenting the information in an organized and well thought-out way, it motivates and brings people on board to assist in education reform.

Interviewees noted the important role that Alliance for Eero County demonstrated when it came to organizing the community around school attendance. Also, their ability to convene organizations in a way that would create collaboration opportunities was also highly praised by interviewees. “Alliance for Eero County is really respected throughout the city and they have an ability, because of their expertise, to rally the community together around important education issues” (Seth Interview). Seth had great insight on the history and success of organizations within Eero County coming together because he often helped to personally fund or would lead the charge to rally the donor community in supporting initiatives that would benefit Eero Public Schools. Seth expressed that through the various meetings, convenings, and other opportunities to work tougher, he could see a concentrated effort throughout EPS to improve overall student attendance. While it was never formally decided upon at any of the meetings, it was generally assumed that Alliance for Eero County would take the lead in convening partners together and had the necessary resources such as physical space and the communication infrastructure that could help spur the efforts of improving school attendance in EPS. Curtis also saw his organization in role of convener as well, because of the organization’s unique role in providing data expertise and analysis that was used to inform the community on education outcomes throughout EPS. Curtis expressed that, “Metro Partnership offers community members, families, and schools data around the issue of chronic absenteeism,


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and seek to help allies come up with a way to really change chronic absenteeism for the better within Eero Public Schools.” The two community members interviewed for this study, Seth and Courtney, also explained that Metro Partnership seemed like an important convener of partners when it came to addressing chronic absenteeism in EPS. While it would seem that Metro Partnership and Alliance for Eero County were competing to be the organization in charge of convening stakeholders, in interviews with staff from both organizations and observations of meetings, there was not any competition between the organizations. In fact, staff from each organization suggested that without the other organization their effectiveness and reach within the community would be nonexistent. As Viki, a middle school principal in EPS stated, “Metro Partnership and Alliance for Eero County really work well together, and they have the respect of many organizations within the community that it makes it easy for them to be in the role of convener.” This respect translated in opportunities for joint messaging to the community around the importance of attending school every day, and why parents should be involved in their children’s education. This opinion was echoed by Emily, a data analyst with Metro Partnership, when she reflected on the annual spring convening of community stakeholders. The annual spring convening was an opportunity to bring together university personnel, philanthropists, business community, nonprofit leaders, educators, school district officials, government agencies, national organizations, and even EPS students who were interested in reducing the impact of chronic absenteeism on EPS students. The annual convening included presentations on different education subject matters, professional development workshops, and networking opportunities for organizations to strategize collaborative partnerships and chronic absenteeism reduction solutions. Emily explained: Bringing people together for the conference shores up a lot of positive support and kind of the support and encouragement that’s needed to continue the work. Being in a room full of people who really care and seeing that and people who sort of have that effort attitude. You know that we can get better. We can look at our challenges as opportunities for coming up with solutions. And I can speak for some of my colleagues that these types of rallying events are also important to them. It’s great for meeting people, making connections and collaborating for the work.

The annual conference served as a catalyst for learning about best practices from different organizations and partners, while also helping to launch new ideas that could improve student attendance in EPS. Using data to highlight the importance of school attendance Collecting and analyzing attendance data was an important piece to addressing chronic absenteeism in EPS. As Travis, a middle school principal mentioned, “district leadership has really taken a call to action about reducing chronic absenteeism and using data to help drive positive results.” Kathy shared that “data is central to everything we do as it relates to getting kids to school, understanding the reasons why they miss school, or the times when they miss school.” Principals across all interviews stated that having access to relevant data related to student absences, such as suspension and discipline referrals, mobility rates, number of calls home due to absences, and reasons why students were missing school, allowed them to respond faster and allocate resources that would help to improve student attendance. Many of the interviewees highlighted how Metro Partnership had been a strategic partner with Eero Public Schools in data analysis and data sharing for many years. Metro Partnership had over twenty years of experience in data analysis between Curtis and Julie, and had built a level of trust within the community, that the data analysis Metro Partnership provided to the community was seen as “pivotal and influenced how the district would implement policies and practices that would benefit all students within the district” (Emily Interview). In recent years, Metro Partnership had their team of data analysts focus on chronic absenteeism data as EPS began to shift its education reform strategies towards improving student attendance. Tracy, a high school principal in EPS stated, “without the data from Metro Partnership, I am not sure exactly if we would be as far along in understanding and really working as a district to solve our chronic absenteeism problem.”

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Interviewees also noted that data were being used to train teachers and other educators in schools in order to understand the nuances and intricacies of chronic absenteeism. As Brenda, a program head within EPS, discussed: We’re trying to really educate counselors, teachers and really interns too to understand what the definition of chronic absenteeism is, how to access the data that we have to analyze student attendance and really just bringing it [chronic absenteeism] to the forefront.

In recent years, Eero County had attempted to shift the thinking around student attendance from truancy to chronic absenteeism. In the past, problem-solving strategies to truancy have traditionally relied on punitive and compliance approaches. Beginning in the 2015–2016 school year, truancy was no longer considered a criminal offense, and students would no longer face prosecution for failing to attend school. An underlining assumption to this change within the state was that districts would enhance their attendance interventions and make progressive efforts to reduce the number of students who would be referred to truancy court failure to attend school. Viki expressed: The change in law, while taking away a method to try to get students to attend school, really forced us to thinking of ways to improve attendance. We are still adjusting to the change but what I am noticing is refocusing ourselves around data, research-based strategies, and thinking beyond just punishing students who do not come to school. So how can we involve parents, the community, brothers, sisters, and anyone else that might be involved in a student’s life to get them to be regular school attenders.

In parallel with the shift in how to respond to students missing school, recent years has seen Eero County move towards a data-driven approach improving educational outcomes for students. Data were used to identify schools and programs in Eero County that had shown promise when it came to successful academic outcomes, and influenced how to bring best practices and strategies to scale in schools and areas of the community that would benefit. When asked about how data was influencing their initiatives, Jessica, a program manager for Leadership Eero County, responded by saying “we have re-oriented ourselves to begin to focus on those schools and areas that the data is telling us that are services and expertise can best be used.” Kevin, a program manager for Metro Partnership, discussed data as a way to connect with partners: The housing authority is another close partner. Our data department is working very closely with housing authority helping them to identify, just different things that are happening within our housing communities and connecting kids. I know I’ve been in conversations with housing authority around the possibility of hiring someone just to address school attendance issues within the housing authority complexes, and that’s just a conversation that we’ve been having over the years.

Another aspect to these partnerships was data-sharing and how it informed policy decisions and distribution of knowledge, expertise, and resources throughout Eero County. As highlighted by Brenda: We have a memorandum of understanding that allows us to share data with organizations in our community for analysis and to determine effectiveness. We’ve rolled this out through our assistant superintendents and higherlevel leadership to make sure that this was of importance. We give principals access to this data so that they can know the measures of success for the year. So as far as data sharing and just trying to bring creative ideas and assistance to our partner organizations that are trying to help us improve student attendance.

As expressed through interviews with stakeholders, data helped in forming partnerships, assist in highlighting areas where improvement was needed, and focusing efforts on decreasing chronic absenteeism within Eero County. Data presented an opportunity to “put everyone on the same page when it came to understanding and improving attendance” as the major focus within Eero County (Julie interview). Further, data gave partners a way to connect with schools order to support the implementation of strategies to decrease chronic absenteeism. Implementation of a national mentoring model in targeted schools Implementing the Success Mentors program meant that EPS had to do so with limited funds. While philanthropists such as Seth donated to EPS to help provide some initial funding, schools within EPS


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that decided to implement the Success Mentors program had to do so with the understanding that they would have limited to no funding for the program. At first, Viki was “skeptical of the community’s support for implementing a mentoring model that had never been tried before to the degree people were talking about scaling it to” (Viki Interview). This was also echoed by Jessica, who cited past efforts when it came to education reform: One of our biggest challenges has been following through on school and community reform efforts. We tend to start something, show some results or progress, celebrate or pat ourselves on the back and move on to the next biggest or greatest thing. We just continue this cycle of starting something and then moving on. And I wonder if we as a community and educators ever have real and sustainable impact.

While encouraged that data were going to be central to all decision making, policy creation, and practices implemented in schools, Tracy expressed skepticism: “I asked many questions. Got guarantees that everything would be in place to make our students and our school successful. And that this— was something that was buying into for the long haul” (Tracy Interview). However, what the principals found was that organizations that had already been working with EPS and their respective schools were willing to supply the resources and volunteer hours necessary to help improve student attendance. Also, within their schools each of the principals reported that their staff were willing to assist by being mentors or helping to facilitate the Success Mentors program. A crucial component to the launch and implementation of the mentoring program was buy-in from top-level district administrators at the central office and from leaders within the community who believed that the Success Mentors program could have a profound impact on their chronically absent students. “We created new positions, put more resources into hiring the right people and organizations to help in providing mentors, and began to create new systems within the district to show that we were serious about eliminating chronic absenteeism in Eero County” said Brenda in an informal interview after touring a school after an attendance rally held at the school. District staff were designated solely to attendance and chronic absenteeism issues, which included data collection, dissemination, and support to schools (Brenda Interview). At the community-level, the Eero County My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) task force met regularly to examine chronic absenteeism data and discuss ways to support the Success Mentors program. One of the efforts of the Eero County MBK task force and Metro Partnership was in the creation of a set of codes explaining reasons for student absences that mentors would be able to use when meeting with their students. These codes, situated within a district dashboard, enabled mentors to track the reasons why students missed school. Jessica, who also volunteered as a Success Mentor in one of the schools, described: the absence codes really helped in facilitating communication with my mentee, while also allowing me to track the reasons why they were missing school. It was good to know that I was able to help provide the school with more information about my mentees reasons why they were missing school, with the hope that the school and district would be able to support the student in attending more regularly.

The Success Mentors program benefited from having a robust partnership between many of the organizations within the community. Organizations not only offered their expertise, but also their staff as volunteers to serve as mentors within EPS schools to chronically absent students. The partnership between the MBK taskforce and organizations like Metro Partnership, helped to promote attendance efforts community-wide and help establish a pattern of collaboration in an effort to improve school attendance.

Implications This study adds to the limited existing literature about the solutions and approaches to address chronic absenteeism. Taking direction from our findings we highlight implications for policy and practice, and provide a potential research framework for future studies on strategies that address chronic absenteeism that incorporates what is most critical to learn from policy and practice.

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Implications for policy Chronic absenteeism is an important part of the recent authorization of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and states’ ESSA plans. Within ESSA, chronic absenteeism is an accountability metric that is used for federal and state reporting, annual district report cards, and as a data point for overall school quality. A total of 36 states and the District of Columbia have adopted chronic absence as a non-academic metric in their ESSA plans, forcing many states to become intentional with their policies and supports for decreasing chronic absence in their schools and districts. The Data Quality Campaign [DQC] (2017) suggests that education data, not limited to test scores, provides timely and understandable information to parents and teachers in order to support student achievement. DQC (2017) notes that, in the past, education data has had a punitive slant, in that it is used to punish students, teachers, schools, and districts, and instead should be used as a “tool for continuous improvement” by providing transparency and accountability and further asserts that education data can be used to significantly empower families and communities. One of DQC’s 10 Essential Elements is student level enrollment, demographic, and program participation information, of which attendance data is a component. As of 2011, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico had a state-level system which incorporated student-level enrollment data (up from 40 states in 2005). Revamping data systems that include the reasons why students miss school (similar to the attendance codes used in Eero Public Schools), and goes beyond just marking when a student misses school, could improve how communities address chronic absenteeism. Also, it could empower non-system actors, those individuals and organizations that are outside of the formal K-12 hierarchy, to become involved in school attendance as some of the causes could be addressed by their expertise and staffing personnel. A final policy implication is the connection between student health and school absence. A 2014 report issued by Upstream Public Health in Oregon (Henderson, Hill, & Norton, 2014) suggests that chronic absenteeism is a public health issue. The National Collaborative on Health and Education (2015) suggests that a healthy school environment—or one that provides access to physical, mental, dental, vision, and behavioral health services as well as healthy food and a supportive school climate— is a critical component in the reduction of chronic absenteeism. Broadening the discussion of student absenteeism to include the knowledge and expertise of public health researchers and officials can assist in extending the reach of community-led initiatives. Implications for practice An early study on the impact of principals on student behavior (Copeland, Brown, & Hall, 1974) found that chronically absent students more often received attention for not being in school, rather than for actually attending. The authors found that the principal praising students for their attendance, rather than scolding them for their absences led to an increase in attendance rates. School leaders have long blamed students for their absenteeism (Epstein & Sheldon, 2002) with little to no acknowledgement of the contextual factors that are often at play. It is necessary, therefore, for principals and school administrators to rethink their strategies for engaging with students and families around attendance issues. Research on school climate suggests that it is the leader of an organization—in this case, the principal—that sets the tone and expectations for behavior norms (Cohen, McCabe, Michelli, & Pickeral, 2009). If positive school climate is linked to an increase in academic achievement and student success (Cohen et al., 2009), then encouraging increased school attendance by positively interacting with students promotes a positive school climate and vice versa. School reforms and the effective implementation of educational policies are ultimately dependent on the capacity of school leadership (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, & Wahlstrom, 2004; Riehl, 2000). School leaders must create practices that address a variety of student needs (Riehl, 2000), especially important in our nation’s increasingly diverse public schools. School leaders must implement policies that necessitate change for their students, but they cannot do so from a deficit perspective. Leadership preparation programs that train school leaders and district administrators must provide aspiring


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leaders with the tools and skills necessary to effectively engage families of all backgrounds as well as business and community organizations. An interesting observation from the interviews was a recognition that a community-driven effort, not just a district-led effort, would lead to more awareness and investment in improving student attendance. Leveraging expertise and resources within the broader community was an important endeavor for the launching and sustaining of the momentum required to improve attendance. Also, building awareness among the community-at-large had to happen in order for common language and understanding could be solidified when it came to chronic absenteeism. Non-system actors are critical to the implementation of scalable chronic absenteeism interventions. Organizations that have expertise in fund-raising, mentoring, direct-investing, supporting or providing volunteers, and marketing for example have the potential to reach a broader audience of community members about what it will take to improve student attendance. As Russell et al. (2015) discovered in their research, these non-system actors often play crucial roles in connecting with schools and districts and carrying out the educational agenda that has been set forth by a district like Eero County. Identifying and leveraging these non-system actors could lead to innovative solutions and approaches to curbing chronic absenteeism, while also engaging a new set of stakeholders in education reform and improvement. Development of a research framework In the ten years since Chang and Romero’s (2008) article that outlined a common definition of chronic absenteeism and the effects of students being chronically absent, research has evolved to include more studies attempting to understand the root causes of why students miss school. Gottfried’s (2014) zones of a student’s life provided a framework for organizing research findings related to root causes around the different dimensions that students interact with daily. Now more studies are emerging highlighting the impact of transportation (Gottfried, 2017), parental beliefs (Robinson et al., 2017), and adverse childhood experiences (Cook et al., 2017) on chronic absenteeism to name a few examples. What is now needed is a framework for research that will assist in understanding how to address chronic absenteeism from a system level. In particular, a framework that incorporates the traditional education hierarchy (i.e. schools, districts, state education agencies, etc.) and non-system actors such as the nonprofit community, philanthropy, business sector, and volunteer organizations. Here, we outline three elements of an effective research framework that can be used to expand the study of chronic absenteeism. Networks Recent studies have highlighted how networks, specifically inter-organizational networks, can help to facilitate education reform (Russell et al., 2015; Hodge, Salloum, & Benko, 2016). What these studies have shown is that there is a cadre of organizations that operate with schools and districts, and can be leveraged in order to foster educational improvement. Furthermore, these networks have the potential to be spaces of innovation, collaboration, and incubators of ideas, policies, and practices that have the potential to bring chronic absenteeism initiatives to scale. Collective impact In recent years, communities around the country have embraced collective impact as a way to tackle complex social issues (Kania & Kramer, 2011). One of the main theories of collective impact is that improving educational outcomes is best addressed when multi-sector organizations are working together and not in silos. While recent critiques of collective impact view it as another iteration of “spinning wheels” in education (Henig, Reil, Rebell, & Wolff, 2015), there is something to be said when organizations come together to address a societal issue. The research literature is limited when it comes to collective impact in education, but as communities around the country implement programs and initiatives similar to My Brother’s Keeper in order to decrease their chronic absenteeism rates,

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understanding the impact of collective impact and the outcomes as a result of its implementation shows promise. Supply chain management In the past thirty years, there has been a considerable expansion of supply chains into various industries including automobile, computer, and apparel industries (Meixell & Gargeya, 2005). Supply chains, the systematic and strategic coordination of business functions and tactics for the purposes of improving long-term performance (Mentzer et al., 2001), incorporates materials, supplies, and the building of trust in order to deliver a product (good or service) to the “customer”. As schools, districts, and states become more involved in understanding and measuring chronic absenteeism, understanding how resources and expertise is leveraged in order to improve attendance can be examined through a supply chain management lens. Looking at the flows of information, knowledge, and resources from organization to organization, or organization to student will provide us a better understanding on the exchanges to have impact on a large number of students. While tiered systems of support (Chang & Romero, 2008) are essential for improving attendance outcomes in students, understanding the flows of strategies and interventions to students would assist researchers and policymakers on whether interventions are worth pursuing or ignoring.

Limitations Although this study has yielded informative qualitative findings, there are limitations. First, this study used a small convenience sample from one school district, therefore findings are not generalizable. This study did not interview all potential stakeholders involved in the chronic absenteeism initiative within the district. Also, while the initiative is ongoing, data collection had to stop due to the end of the school year and thus does not capture the overall impact of the initiative as it relates to the change in the data as it relates to chronic absenteeism. Finally, the study did not investigate the outcome of the initiative, as it was more focused on the approach and direction of the initiative.

Conclusion This qualitative interview study described the collaborative approach used in Eero County to combat chronic absenteeism and improve attendance within the district. The use of qualitative interviews identified the strategies implemented by a variety of stakeholders and partners involved in launching and engaging with the initiative. Our findings on the strategies suggest that schools and districts attempting to reduce student absenteeism can successfully collaborate with community organizations interested in education reform. Future qualitative research that utilizes cross-sector collaboration research and data collection strategies would greatly expand our knowledge of these types of community-wide endeavors, especially in urban districts. In closing, this study raises an important question: To what extent are organizations, especially those that are not formally embedded in the K-12 hierarchy but strongly connected to the communities that they serve, engaged in addressing chronic absenteeism? Our findings suggest that organizations are willing to engage in efforts that have the potential to alleviate a complex social problem. A critical issue will be in understanding how to bring these types of endeavors to scale, how to manage data collection and analysis, and how to sustain these endeavors for numerous school years.

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