Attendance Status and Practices of Grade 7 and Third Year Level -School Year 2013-14: Bases for Procedural Prevention/Intervention Programs (original) (raw)
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Elementary School Attendance Improvement Dropout Prevention OREA Report
1989
The Attendance Improvement Dropout Prevention program (A.I.D.P.) is a state-funded, multi-faceted program designed to provide services to students considered to be at risk of dropping out of school. The elementary school A.I.D.P. program is comprised of six components: facilitation, attendance outreach, guidance, health, school-level linkage, and extended school day and is modeled on the middle school A.I.D.P. program. The implementation of the A.I.D.P. in five schools was reviewed. The evaluation results indicated that all five programs shared certain features. Each program emphasized individual attention to students, and consistent outreach and guidance and counseling services, including phone calls or letters to parents, home visits, and parent conferences. Generally, elementary school A.I.D.P. programs were successful at reaching parents when an outreach attempt was made, though success rates varied from school to school, depending on the outreach method used. Students in the program tended to improve their attendance, improve or maintain academic achievement levels, and pass to the next highest class at the end of the school year. A small number continued to have trouble passing all their subjects. The findings suggest that the programs should continue and staffing should increase. (ABL)
The study explored the effects of students' absenteeism on student academic and school performance in Uganda. The study also assessed the effectiveness of class attendance monitoring tool; the challenges faced by the school administration in dealing with absentee student(s); and established the relationship between students' absenteeism and academic performance of students. The relevant literature was reviewed to anchor the methodology and the findings. The study adopted descriptive cross-sectional survey design. A combination of stratified and purposive sampling was applied to accommodate the variety of respondents from Serere, Soroti, Kumi and Ngora districts in Teso sub-region; North Eastern Uganda. The study used questionnaires and interview schedules to collect primary data from 349 respondents who participated in the study out of the expected 384 obtained from a target population of 100,000 giving a response rate of 90.89%. The findings shows that the monitoring tools used for students' attendance are effective (good) and there is a very positive relationship between student attendance and academic performance. The researcher also found that school attendance affects both the students and the school performance. To the students; it leads to poor academic performance, students drop out, graduating half-baked students, poor curriculum coverage and loss of interest in learning whist to the school; it affects the school image, lower the students' enrollment, transfer of students by parents, wastage of teachers' and administrators' time and affects the university/tertiary enrolment. However, the school administration faces challenges of; interruption of lessons, students being hostile/belligerent to teachers, and parents defending their children whilst dealing with absenteeism students. The study also provides the practical and most effective strategies to improve students' attendance. These staregies include; promoting Zero Tolerance to Students Absenteeism, parental involvement and participation, developing students' mentoring programmes, improving " rich " student's programmes, promoting guidance and counseling, promote good communication, reward students with regular attendance, and need to monitor and supervise school attendance. The researcher concludes that, to support students academically in and out of school; administrators, teachers, and families need to have a shared understanding of their children's learning and work as partners to meet their academic and social-emotional needs.
A new program to prevent primary school absenteeism: Results of a pilot study in five schools
Children and Youth Services Review, 2017
Frequent absences in the primary grades are associated with school disengagement, academic failure, and eventual dropout. The Early Truancy Prevention Project (ETPP) was designed to improve attendance of primarygrade children by facilitating communication between teachers and parents and giving the teachers the lead role in intervening with students when attendance problems emerge. In 2013-14, the current version of ETPP was implemented in 20 classrooms in five high-poverty public elementary schools, with 21 other classrooms in the same schools serving as controls. Our analysis of attendance data indicated that ETPP significantly reduced the prevalence of absenteeism without excessively burdening teachers. Teachers reported improved communication between parents and teachers and had a positive assessment of the effects of specific program elements.
Present and Accounted for: Improving Student Attendance Through Family and Community Involvement
The Journal of Educational Research, 2002
Reducing student absenteeism and truancy is a goal of many schools across the country. Surprisingly little research focuses on what schools can do to increase and sustain students' daily attendance, and even fewer studies explore how family-school-community partnerships may contribute to this goal. In this longitudinal study, data were collected on schools' rates of daily student attendance and chronic absenteeism and on specific partnership practices that were implemented to help increase or sustain student attendance. Results indicate that several family-school-community partnership practices predict an increase in daily attendance, a decrease in chronic absenteeism, or both. The data suggest that schools may be able to increase student attendance in elementary school by implementing specific family and community involvement activities.
Reflections on the Field of School Attendance Problems: For the Times They Are a-Changing?
Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 2019
This article presents reflections on the seven articles included in this special series. The classification of school attendance problems (SAPs) based on structured checklists of SAP types (school refusal, truancy, school withdrawal, and school exclusion) together with functional analysis opens the way for establishing norms and social referents. We discuss how authorized nonattendance can also be problematic if it is persistent, and that it is important to take this type of SAP into account if the field is to effectively understand and respond to the complex range of bio-psycho-socio-cultural determinants of absenteeism. We highlight other gaps in the current literature, one of which is the lack of attention to evidence-based prevention and early intervention strategies. Avenues for future research are suggested, with emphasis on the need for pragmatic approaches to address the complexities of SAPs. Promising work is beginning to address the SAPs that are prevalent in special populations such as those with autism spectrum disorder. Overall, our reflections highlight the incremental changes that have characterized the field, exemplified by this series of articles, and the promise of transformational change in tackling the major challenge of SAPs as research in the field continues. T HIS special series on school refusal and other school attendance problems (SAPs) covers the broad fields of classification (Heyne, Gren-Landell, Melvin, & Gentle-Genitty, 2019, this issue), predictors and early identification with implications for prevention and early intervention (Chu, Guarino, Mele, O'Connell, & Coto, 2019, this issue; Ingul et al., 2019, this issue) and approaches to management and treatment, particularly for school refusal, which is the type of SAP associated with emotional distress (Brouwer-Borghuis, Heyne, Sauter, & Scholte, 2019, this issue; McKay-Brown et al., 2019, this issue; Melvin & Gordon, 2019, this issue; Reissner et al., 2019, this issue). Together, the articles are extremely helpful in summarizing contemporary knowledge and highlighting novel and exciting clinical practice and approaches to service delivery to improve youths' school attendance. The articles also reveal a research agenda necessary to drive change, and to justify the implementation of service delivery. Depending on the readers' perspective, the articles highlight two sides of a coin that are not mutually exclusive. The side of the coin that a reader will focus on is likely to be correlated with whether that reader is more of a Bob Dylan fan-"the times they are a-changing"-or a fan of Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr-"the more things change, the more they stay the same"; or, as we like to say in French, "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." Because we (BJT; WKS) are admirers of both Dylan and Karr, we have tried as much as possible to present both sides of the coin in our reflections. We aim specifically to harvest the novel points from the articles, to indicate gaps in knowledge, and to delineate the implications of several of these points and knowledge gaps for improving school attendance and future research. At the same time, when appropriate, we point out other efforts conducted in the past that aimed to address similar points and gaps, how these efforts fared, and, more important, what lessons were learned. Of note, we both had the honor and privilege to participate in the Lorentz Center Workshop "School Absenteeism: Universal Problem Seeks Gold Standard Solutions" in March 2018, mentioned by David Heyne in his Introduction to this special series. We also had the pleasure to serve as co-chairs and co-discussants of several topics covered during the Lorentz Center Workshop. Many of those topics are addressed in the articles contained in this special series. The participants of