A comprehensive Approach to Improving Student Attendance in Los Angeles County a report from the School Attendance Task Force
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National Best Practice Models: Alhambra and BaltimoreAs noted, Task Force members heard from a number of leaders regarding initiatives and programs developed to address attendance-related issues. Two programs in particular stood out because they provide comprehensive, school-based approaches to addressing student attendance issues that incorporate research-based practices and were supported by data reflecting improved outcomes. Alhambra Unified School DistrictThe Alhambra Unified School District (AUSD) has an enrollment of 18,541, with students’ families being predominately low-income immigrants. Approximately 53 percent are Asian, 40 percent Latino, 1 percent African-American, and 9 percent Caucasian and others. AUSD students speak 27 different languages and over half are non-citizens, with one-fourth having arrived in the United States less than three years ago. Nearly 70 percent of students reside in low-income homes and between 70 and 81 percent of students receive free and reduced-price lunches. One hundred percent are eligible for Title I funding. In 2008–2009, the AUSD truancy rate was 37.2 percent higher than that of Los Angeles County as a whole. High school rates were 44.5 percent, elementary rates were 26.09 percent, and the total district rate was 28.73 percent. Between seventh and eleventh grade, truancy rates more than doubled, highlighting the need for early intervention. In that year, AUSD had a total of 5,364 students—4,473 of them in high school—who met the criteria of ‘truant’ as set by the state of California. AUSD decided to take concrete and systemic action to address the issue. As a result, in the 2009–2010 school year, the number of students labeled as truant fell to 2,263, a 42 percent reduction from 2008–2009. At the half-way point for the 2010–2011 school year, this decline in truancies has continued at a rate of over 61 percent.
The goal of Gateway is to increase access to high-quality school-based mental health care by developing innovative, research-informed approaches that link the school system with the local mental health system. This framework was developed to align with a three-tier public health framework aimed at improving prevention, diagnosis, and treatment services. As shown in Figure 1, the continuum of efforts includes:
Figure 1. Alhambra Unified School District Gateway to Success Behavioral Pyramid
This evolving framework has now expanded district-wide and employs a multi-layered approach, incorporating comprehensive prevention and intervention services to reduce campus violence and student behavioral and substance-related problems, and increase the reach of school-based mental health services Centralized and School-Site Management Teams and Referral System. Central to this framework is a multidisciplinary management team—consisting of leadership from the school district, community partners, and higher education—that was formed to drive the project. The Mental Health Integration Team (MHIT) conducts strategic planning, expands partnerships, oversees program implementation, and monitors outcomes achieved. Program success is dependent on collaborative relationships between the MHIT, the superintendent, the board of education, community partners, and school-site personnel. To ensure the participation of all stakeholders, a Gateway Advisory Board was created to oversee program progress and expenditures, continuously review outcomes, and make mid-course adjustments as needed. The Advisory Board involves multiple and diverse community sectors and includes the chief of police; the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, Department of Mental Health, and Office of Education; Gateway’s external evaluator; and community stakeholders. Both student and parent advisory committees also provide ongoing feedback to ensure program responsiveness to the district’s cultural and language needs. The focus of all of these entities is to determine how to effectively integrate school and community resources in policy and practice, with a common goal of promoting healthy child and youth development for all students and breaking down barriers to learning. To meet district need, the MHIT assessed service availability through resource mapping and a gap analysis (Adelman & Taylor, 2006). This process led to a strategic plan to integrate school-based and school-linked services. Periodic resource mapping evaluates the evolution of the process and allows for midcourse correction, with the goal of maintaining a sustainable infrastructure. The MHIT identified and partnered with community agencies with the capacity to provide services, completing a formal collaborative agreement with each that specifies roles and responsibilities. Representatives from each partnering agency participate on the School Site Team—school staff, community partners, law enforcement, and site administrators—that provides site-based management for the strategic plan developed by the MHIT, and supervises school-wide student support issues and crises, coordinates universal and early interventions, and collaborates with school site staff. The School Site Team also monitors students identified as at risk, facilitates their referral to and engagement in services, and supports families through the referral process. Representatives from partnering agencies who participate on the School Site Team deliver a range of evidenced-based, developmentally appropriate approaches. This ensures the quality of treatment and increases the range, quantity, and availability of services. Culturally responsive mental health providers who speak predominant languages are also included on the School Site Team. Completed referral forms are submitted to the School Site Team leadership and the team assigns and tracks each referral to mental health service providers who are either employed by or contract with the school district. Prior to assignment, the team leader initiates contact with the family, introduces the services to be provided, assesses for third-party payment, and prepares the family for the subsequent contact with the service provider. Ongoing Training. All school personnel (teachers, administrators, special education, support and clerical staff, as well as instructional and yard duty aides, etc.) and partnering agencies participate in cross-training—jointly training multiple disciplines—on topics that include the identification of mental health risk factors, available services, the referral protocol, school culture, collaboration strategies, confidentiality, and family privacy, as well as culturally sensitive intervention. To increase capacity, school and partnering agency staff participate in crisis response training. Staff is also trained on data gathering and input procedures. Outcomes are disseminated though training so that data-driven decisions are made. Data Tracking. To evaluate the impact of this coordinated mental health structure, a computer-based surveillance system tracks student referrals and linkages. This system monitors individual student activity from referral to service termination, and allows for the analysis of the Gateway program’s impact on service capacity and access. Student-level data (attendance, disciplinary actions, and academic performance) are considered in conjunction with program-specific service utilization data to determine whether a particular service or cluster of services is correlated with utilization. This system provides quantitative data to characterize referrals, including ethnicity, age, gender, grade level, service acceptance and service linkage, units of service, length of service, school performance, and treatment outcome. A surveillance and referral system to address mental health needs is critical to ensure the efficacy and sustainability of this system. Benefits of Collaboration. This model encourages teamwork and collaboration between school personnel and partnering agencies with the goal of increasing capacity and service access. Collaboration is interwoven at every program level. Leadership is provided through the MHIT and the School Site Team, which incorporates representatives from a continuum of stakeholders with the goal of improved care and coordination. This comprehensive approach continues to develop alongside more sophisticated outcome evaluations. As a result of the ongoing collaboration, a host of other reforms have been achieved, including a safety net of intervention services available to students when they return to school; a central process for all referrals (attendance, behavioral, mental health, and so on); and the addition of university interns, including clinically trained psychologists, on every school campus to leverage resources. Parent University and Other Parent Engagement Initiatives. An innovative Parent University holds monthly workshops at which hundreds of parents learn techniques to help their students improve. Among other things, the University helps parents understand how to navigate the school system, what their students need to succeed, and how to prevent power struggles with their children; it also includes an LGBTQ curriculum. In addition, a local evaluation team measures the effects of a range of efforts—anti-bullying campaigns; Internet safety promotion; alcohol, tobacco, and other drug prevention; violence prevention; mental health services for different ethnic groups; and so forth. Parents also receive ongoing support from Parent University staff. School staff, district and community partners, police, mental health agencies, and the courts invite parents to join the University and encourage their participation. The Gateway program also offers Incredible Years, a free eight-week program for parents with children between the ages of three and five that is important in building a school-going culture among families whose children will be entering AUSD. (Additional information on the Parent University and the Incredible Years program appears in Appendix 00.0.0.0.0Appendix F.) Reward System for Attendance. Each school works with the Gateway to Success program and has its own system for rewarding students for outstanding or improved attendance. At the elementary level, students are recognized at assemblies and given certificates. At the high schools, assistant principals, counselors, and teachers reward and congratulate students individually. Students are also rewarded for perfect attendance at each school site. Review of Disciplinary Exclusions. AUSD reviewed the number of suspensions and expulsions in its schools, recognizing that disciplinary exclusions also affect student attendance. AUSD has since developed policies to minimize disciplinary exclusions, including requiring schools to use multiple interventions prior to initiating a suspension and to document these interventions for low-level offenses such as defiance. As a result of these efforts, disciplinary exclusions have dropped consistently over the last two academic years, as summarized in Table 1. Table 1. Alhambra Unified School District Disciplinary Exclusions
SARB Process Linked to Real Services and Interventions and Only After Multiple Interventions. AUSD has also integrated the SARB process into its graduated response to attendance issues and requires documentation that the school has made multiple efforts to connect the student and/or family to resources before proceeding with a SARB referral. In addition, AUSD utilizes the SARB process in a manner that focuses on prevention and intervention, rather than scare tactics and punitive responses. Real resources are provided and the SARB’s stated goal is to provide prevention and support services to students and families with various needs. As such, the SARB process in AUSD is used as the tool of last resort when other approaches have failed. Of the 71 students who appeared at a SARB hearing during the 2009–2010 school year, 51 (almost 72 percent) demonstrated improved attendance, defined as a student who improved his or her attendance at least 50 percent since the hearing. Of the 85 students who appeared at a SARB hearing during 2010–2011, 54 (almost 64 percent) demonstrated improved attendance. Alignment with Evidence-Based Practices. The Alhambra program includes several components that draw on evidence-based research on effective truancy reduction.
Baltimore City SchoolsBaltimore City Schools serve 85,000 students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade in 200 schools. Of these students, 87 percent are African-American, 9 percent white, 3 percent Hispanic/Latino, and 1 percent other ethnicities. Eighty-three percent are eligible for free and reduced-priced meals, and there is a 32 percent rate of student mobility. With 60 percent of the district’s teachers being considered “highly qualified,” Baltimore has 90 percent average daily attendance, and a 31 percent chronic absence rate.20 Overview of the Baltimore Approach. When Baltimore City Schools realized that attendance rates could accurately predict school drop-outs, education leaders in Baltimore partnered with researchers at Harvard Law School and the SOROS Foundation, among others, to study and understand the extent of the problem. As part of this process, they identified 100 public and private partners to serve on an Attendance Taskforce and develop a set of recommendations. Taskforce members quickly focused in on prevention and intervention. With such a range of partners at the table, resources could be targeted to address barriers facing families, such as instability/mobility, homelessness, and lack of transportation and health care. The Baltimore Attendance Taskforce recommendations included:
Based on these recommendations, Baltimore is now conducting a multi-year campaign to improve student attendance rates. For the first year of its campaign (2009–2010), the key components of Baltimore’s attendance strategy included examining the data, spreading the word through community forums, and identifying partner agencies and leaders to drive reforms. The second year (2010–2011) focused on maintaining the momentum by strengthening universal approaches, deepening the work with special populations, implementing a coordinated campaign, targeting chronically absent students going into sensitive transition grades (kindergarten and sixth and ninth grades), and revising/improving the use of attendance data. Some key reforms or initiatives that have been adopted are summarized below. Implementing Universal Strategies to Improve Attendance and Targeting Interventions for Students with Persistent Attendance Issues. As with AUSD’s program, Baltimore employs a three-tiered approach, with particular emphasis on the following strategies (based on research-based practices) to improve and underscore the importance of student attendance:
Baltimore’s policy also requires, in all instances, that schools offer positive supports to promote school attendance before resorting to punitive responses or legal action. Other key policy changes include:
Additionally, in response to data showing that attendance was especially poor the first years after students transitioned from elementary to middle school and from middle school to high school, the Baltimore City School District closed or phased out most of its stand-alone middle schools and replaced them with pre-kindergarten through eighth grade and sixth- to twelfth-grade transformation schools. Reducing Disciplinary Exclusions. Baltimore also committed to end its practice of using punitive out-of-school suspensions to punish lack of attendance and defiance and, instead, focuses on a problem-solving, data-centered approach to keep children in school. Baltimore also targeted its high suspension rate, recognizing that sending children home puts them further behind academically and makes them far more likely to drop out. The school district partnered with community stakeholders to review and substantially revise the discipline code (Figure 2), particularly provisions that had allowed high rates of disciplinary exclusion for defiant behaviors such as talking back and for absences (students may not be suspended for poor attendance in California). As a result, the number of suspensions dropped from 26,310 to 9,712 over a two-year period (Figure 3). Figure 2. Baltimore City Schools Discipline Code
Figure 3. Baltimore City Schools Decreases in Absences and Suspensions
Prioritizing Data Analysis and Data-Based Decision-Making. Because chronic absence is often a signal of family or community distress, Baltimore prioritizes the use of data on absences to allocate preschool and early resources, provide free tax-preparation and tax-credit outreach, and target health, housing, and other resources. For example, one elementary school focused on education and access to medical resources to address asthma after identifying high incidences of asthma as a principal cause of high absence rates among many of its students. Additionally, by requiring biweekly reviews by key district personnel of attendance data and making attendance a ‘must-respond-to’ indicator, district leadership can be proactive in addressing issues at the school level that may be contributing to poor attendance, and are able to hold site administrators accountable for addressing individual student attendance issues as they arise. Evidence of Improved Outcomes. As a result of this coordinated and focused campaign, Baltimore City chronic absence and habitual truancy rates are declining, particularly in elementary and middle school. Chronic absence in the middle grades has decreased by 15 percent, and more than 16,000 fewer suspensions occurred in Baltimore City public schools. This transformation requires persistent monitoring and analysis; a team in Baltimore’s headquarters consistently reviews attendance and suspension data on a school-by-school basis and provides additional support and training to schools with disproportionately high numbers of either absences or suspensions. Alignment with Evidence-Based Practices. The Baltimore approach incorporates several of the evidence-based practices that the School Attendance Task Force identified as being proven to improve student attendance.
All of these are components of Baltimore’s program.
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