Improving Attendance Through Collective Learning Among Schools, Communities, and Families

• In Event: 35.077 - MTCC Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: 35.077-6 - Iteration, Integrity, and School Improvement

Abstract

Five years ago, a coalition of community, philanthropic, political, and education leaders in a major Midwestern city came together with the goal of reducing chronic absenteeism from more than 40% to 15% by 2027. This paper reports on the opportunities and challenges that arose when the group adopted the methods of improvement science to learn about and improve upon their effectiveness, starting with an after-school program for chronically absent middle school students. We find that the methods of improvement science helped participants identify misalignment between the root causes of absenteeism and the theory of action for their work, leading to a change in direction that gave rise to differing interests among coalition partners and a new commitment developmental learning.

Author

• Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, Wayne State University