Poster #167 - Improving School Attendance and Academic Performance: The Role of Multiyear Participation in After School Programs

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Prevention and Interventions

Integrative Statement

Children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds face numerous psychosocial and environmental stressors that confer risk for negative academic outcomes (Morrissey, Hutchison, & Winsler, 2013). Students from low-income schools are less likely to graduate high school (Englund, Egeland, & Collins, 2008; Haveman, Wolfe, & Spaulding, 1991; Kearney & Levine, 2016), have lower academic achievement (Duncan, Ziol-Guest, & Kalil, 2010), and may be at greater risk for school absences (Morrissey, Hutchison, & Winsler, 2013). The challenge for educators and policymakers continues to be how to promote positive youth outcomes within economically disadvantaged school systems and communities. This pursuit has been exacerbated by the criminalization of school day infractions, zero tolerance policies, and the increased use of disciplinary sanctions that remove students from the regular school day (Hoffman, 2012). These school policies are theorized to contribute to the school to prison pipeline phenomena through which disproportionate numbers of children from disadvantaged backgrounds are incarcerated (Nance, 2016; Mallett, 2016). Attempts to disrupt this pattern and improve student outcomes focus on altering policies to implement alternative disciplinary procedures (Nance, 2016), and provide supports for key factors associated with academic success (i.e., school engagement, academic performance; Holt, Bry, & Johnson, 2008; Webster-Stratton, Reid, & Stoolmiller, 2008; Tachelle & Eaton, 2014).
After school programs may be an advantageous resource for improving these outcomes and potentially attenuating the early risk indicator of academic failure. 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) include federally-funded after school programs designed to provide academic enrichment opportunities to students attending high-poverty and low-performing schools. Therefore, 21st CCLC may be an ideal setting to promote positive behaviors and enhance academic performance with at-risk students. The present study assessed the relationship between the number of years students attended 21st CCLC programs and salient academic, behavioral, and attendance outcomes. The sample included 9,138 students who attended one of 108 21st CCLC afterschool programs between 2013-2017 in the state of Connecticut. Mixed ANOVAs were conducted to evaluate whether students’ average school day attendance, standardized test scores, and number of disciplinary infractions differed by the number of years of participation in a 21st CCLC after school program. Results demonstrated that students who participated in afterschool programs for multiple years had significantly higher rates of school day attendance and higher scores on Connecticut’s standardized tests compared to students participating for one year. There was also a nonsignificant but encouraging trend for reductions in mean number of disciplinary infractions for students attending multiple years.
These findings suggest that multi-year participation in 21st CCLC afterschool programs is associated with higher rates of school day attendance and academic performance. Practice implications focus on student-, community-, and program-level techniques that after school programs can use to promote youth engagement, particularly in at-risk communities. Recommendations are also provided for enhancing evaluations of after school programs that enable empirical investigations of how program components influence student engagement and their behavioral and academic performance. Such evaluations are the first step towards manualizing evidenced based practices that promote multi-year student engagement.

Authors

• Jennifer Dealy, University of Connecticut
  Presenting Author

• Beth Russell, University of Connecticut
  Non-Presenting Author

• Morica Hutchinson, University of Connecticut
  Non-Presenting Author

• Betsy LeBorious, Capitol Region Education Council (CREC )
  Non-Presenting Author

• Shelby Pons, Capitol Region Education Council (CREC )
  Non-Presenting Author