Attendance Supports to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism

In 2018, Rhode Island’s Providence Public School District (PPSD) implemented a student attendance policy that requires schools to track and address chronic absenteeism. Schools are encouraged to implement attendance supports such as attendance teams, leveraged partnerships, parent engagement specialists, nudge letters, phone calls, text messaging, and mentorship programs. A new report from REL Northeast & Islands examined the implementation of attendance supports to reduce chronic absenteeism in 39 PPSD schools in 2018/19. The study compared attendance supports between schools in which chronic absenteeism increased between 2017/18 and 2018/19 and schools in which it decreased. The study also looked more closely at how implementation of one support—text messaging to parents and guardians of students—varied across schools. The study found: Schools in which chronic absenteeism decreased implemented text messaging, phone calls, and mentorship programs with moderate or high fidelity more frequently than schools in which chronic absenteeism increased. The use of attendance-related text messaging increased more quickly in schools in which chronic absenteeism decreased than in schools in which chronic absenteeism increased, where the use of attendance-related text-messaging remained flat. PPSD can use the study findings to update its student attendance policy and develop new recommendations for how district schools can use existing resources efficiently to reduce chronic absenteeism. The study also brings new insights to the research base on school use of attendance supports and could be relevant for districts and schools across the country.