The Role of Mentors in Boosting Grade School Attendance: Lessons From Check & Connect

• In Event: 41.083 - Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: 41.083-6 - Scalable Mechanisms to Improve K–12 Attendance

Abstract

Students cannot benefit from school if they do not attend. Many students, even in the elementary and middle school grades, miss large numbers of days and even weeks of school each year. Studies have shown that low attendance in early and middle grades is strongly associated with high school dropout and other negative life outcomes, including drug and alcohol use, teenage pregnancy, and crime. Despite the apparent importance of school attendance, evidence on the effectiveness of attendance-improving programs is limited.

This study aims to fill that gap by testing the effectiveness of Check & Connect (C&C), a manualized structured mentoring program designed to improve student attendance and strengthen youth connections to school. C&C mentors are full-time, in-school staff who build relationships with a caseload of high-need students and their families. Mentors support students by assessing their engagement and learning while offering individualized intervention in partnership with school personnel, families, and community service providers. We evaluated the effectiveness of C&C in the Chicago Public Schools in 24 neighborhood schools serving Kindergarten-8th graders. From 2011 to 2015, two cohorts of randomly selected students in grades 1-8 in were offered the chance to receive C&C services, with randomization occurring at the school, grade, and student levels. Each cohort of students received services for two years.

Analysis suggests that receiving C&C services increased the attendance of middle school aged (grades 5-8) students in both cohorts, but had little or no effect on attendance of elementary aged students (grades 1-4). We also find that the C&C mentor had a larger effect in the second year of the program within each cohort. By the end of the second year of treatment, C&C had reduced annual absences for middle school students by between one and two weeks of school.

Authors

• Jonathan Guryan, Northwestern University

• Jens Ludwig, University of Chicago