Student Attendance: A Persistent Challenge and Leading Indicator for Baltimore's Community School Strategy

• In Event: Meeting Educational Responsibility Through Research on Full-Service Community Schools

Abstract

Objective: This study draws from 11 years of district administrative data to examine relationships between FSCSs and student attendance. Since FSCS strategies focus on increasing student and family engagement and removing barriers to attendance, this study tests the hypothesis that enrollment in a FSCS will be positively associated with student attendance at the individual level. Further, the study tests whether more time spent enrolled in FSCSs is positively associated with individual student attendance rates over time. Qualitative data are used to contextualize the quantitative results.

Perspectives: The study relies on the theoretical framework of relational trust, as described by Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider (2002). Relationships are central to FSCSs, as partnerships across stakeholders -- school staff, community-based organizations, community members, and families -- are at the heart of FSCS strategies (Blank, Melaville & Shah, 2003; Dryfoos, 2002; Valli, Stefanski & Jacobson, 2013). Further, decision-making in FSCSs is shared, and power is thus more equally distributed than in traditional school-community structures. The theory of relational trust helps explain how distributed leadership can reduce the typical power asymmetries that can generate mistrust among stakeholders and corresponding challenges with student attendance.

Data Sources: The study draws on publicly available school data from Baltimore, Maryland; administrative student data collected from FSCSs in the district from 2005 through 2015; and interview data collected from a purposefully selected sample of FSCS coordinators in 2015.

Methods: The quantitative component of this study relies on a GLS random-effects modeling approach, where individual students in FSCSs are observed over time (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). Interview data collected from FSCS coordinators were analyzed using thematic coding to identify consistent practices or guiding principles that coordinators used in the course of their work around student attendance (Saldaña, 2009).

Results: Publicly available school data show that chronic absence in Baltimore City Schools is endemic, particularly in some of the city’s high schools, where in 2014-15 as many as 70% of students missed 20 or more days of school (Maryland State Department of Education, 2015).
Findings from models testing the relationship between the number of years a student was enrolled in a FSCS yielded a positive and statistically significant relationship with attendance rates, as well as a negative relationship with the probability of chronic absence. The finding holds net of fixed-effects for each year since implementation, as well as student-level demographic and educational service characteristics (i.e., gender, ethnicity, special education status, or free/reduced-price meal eligibility). Interviews with FSCS coordinators at schools with attendance rates that were higher than predicted by student- and school characteristics suggest that deliberate and coordinated engagement practices with students and family members hold promise for maintaining consistent student attendance.

Significance: The study, thus, demonstrates the importance of intentional efforts to build school, family, and community partnerships characterized by relational trust for improving attendance - one of the key goals of FSCSs.

Authors

• Rachel E. Durham, Notre Dame of Maryland University

• Jessica Shiller, Towson University

• Faith Connolly, Johns Hopkins University