Re-engaging Students: The Impact of City Connects on Attendance in a Midwestern State

• In Event: From the Coast to the Heartland: Scaling Integrated Student Support Systems in the Post-Pandemic Era

Abstract

Objectives: This study assesses the impact of the City Connects integrated student support (ISS) intervention on school engagement in a Midwestern state. It examines whether ISS increases attendance and reduces chronic absenteeism, particularly for historically underserved subgroups. Given the national urgency around reducing post-pandemic disengagement and promoting equity, the study offers timely evidence on the potential of ISS to re-engage students and address systemic barriers to learning.

Theoretical Framework: Attendance is shaped not only by individual behavior but also by broader historical and structural inequities, as well as students’ lived experiences. Studies have shown the association between absenteeism and behavioral issues (Ingul et al., 2012; Gubbels et al., 2019). City Connects embeds coordinators in schools who assess each student's strengths, needs, and interests and connect students with tailored support across academic, health, social-emotional, and family domains. This whole-child approach is designed to re-engage students by addressing physical and mental health needs, strengthening student-teacher relationships, and fostering meaningful connections within and beyond the school, all of which can reduce avoidable absences. The model aligns with a growing national recognition that re-engagement requires coordinated, systemic responses beyond the classroom (Childs and Scanlon, 2024).

Methods: We employ a student-level difference-in-differences approach to estimate the impact of City Connects on attendance-related outcomes. We compare students who attended City Connects schools with comparable peers in non-participating schools before and after the intervention implementation. We account for key time-variant characteristics, including free/reduced-price lunch (FRL) eligibility, English learner status, special education status, and school size. We include year, school, and student fixed effects to control for factors that are universal to specific years, schools, or students. This design isolates within-student changes over time while addressing confounding factors.

Data source: We use longitudinal student-level administrative data acquired through a data-sharing agreement with the Department of Education of this state. The dataset spans the 2015–16 through 2023–24 school years, encompassing at most three years post-implementation of City Connects. Attendance measures include total days attended/absent, and chronic absenteeism. The analytic sample contains all students in Grades 1–12.

Results: For students in Grade 3 and above, those who received City Connects intervention had approximately two additional days of attendance annually (SE = 1.17). Effects are stronger among students in Grade 6 and above, attending 3.73 more days (SE = 1.79) annually. For students in Grade 3 and above who received the intervention, the likelihood of chronic absenteeism decreases by 3 percentage points (SE = 1.27)—a 7% reduction from the 40% baseline in City Connects schools. The overall effects on attendance-related outcomes are driven by FRL-eligible students and Black students.

Significance: This study provides evidence that ISS interventions can increase attendance, an essential indicator of school engagement and a predictor of academic success. The findings contribute to national efforts to combat chronic absenteeism through coordinated whole-child approaches and support growing policy interest in scaling the evidence-based community schools model. The implications are especially timely as districts strive to build more equitable and responsive education systems post-pandemic.

Authors

• Yan Leigh, Boston College

• Haibin Jiang, Boston College

• Mary Elizabeth Walsh, Boston College