1-165 - Experiments in Early Truancy Prevention

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The traditional focus of truancy prevention has been in middle and high school, where truants are seen as a threat to the community. An alternative focus on truancy is gaining traction, which considers truancy an impediment to learning and a precursor to dropout, as well as disruption to the instructional flow. In that perspective truancy becomes an academic problem, one that begins in primary school. This symposium begins with a paper that uses two large longitudinal data sets to document the importance of early truancy as a predictor of subsequent truancy and of eventual dropout. It includes two reports of a large-scale experiment with assigning adult mentors to at-risk children in the Chicago Public Schools, grades 1-8 (the Check and Connect program), which finds promising results for the older grades and offers extensive qualitative documentation of processes that engender truancy. Finally, there is a paper on the new Early Truancy Prevention Program, which assigns primary school teachers the lead role in improving attendance and provides them with a variety of resources to assist in that role. The Program has been pilot tested in first and second grades of the Durham Public Schools with positive results.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chair

• Jens Ludwig, University of Chicago

Individual Presentations

• 1. Primary School Truancy: Risk Factors and Consequences for Subsequent Dropout - Presenting Author: Philip Cook, Duke Univ; Max Crowley, Duke University; Kenneth A Dodge, Duke University; Maeve Gearing, The Urban Institute

• The Effectiveness of Structured Mentoring at Reducing Chronic Truancy - Sandra Christenson, University of Minnesota; Amy Claessens, University of Chicago; Philip Cook, Duke Univ; Ashley Cureton, University of Chicago; Mimi Engel, Vanderbilt University; Presenting Author: Jonathan Guryan, Northwestern University; Ijun Lai, Northwestern University; Jens Ludwig, University of Chicago; Mary Clair Turner, Northwestern Univ

• The Early Truancy Prevention Program: Pilot Evaluation - Philip Cook, Duke Univ; Kenneth A Dodge, Duke University; Elizabeth Gifford, Duke University; Presenting Author: Amy Schulting, Duke University

• Understanding Elementary School Truancy - Presenting Author: Amy Claessens, University of Chicago; Mimi Engel, Vanderbilt University