Attendance Works

August 19th, 2011

Good Afterschool = Better School Day Attendance

A new study by Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) underscores the important role that engaging afterschool programs can play in encouraging students to come to school regularly.

The study, AfterZone: Outcomes for Youth Participating in Providence’s After-School System, found that absences were 25 percent lower among middle school youth who participated in the AfterZone for two school years compared with their peers who did not participate. The students also saw gains in math grades.

“It was rather striking that a network of after-school programs shrinks school absences by 25 percent after two years, a reduction that was unusually large for after-school programs that do not explicitly target school outcomes,” Tina Kauh, P/PV senior research associate and director of the study said in a news release. The study was funded by The Wallace Foundation

The study released Thursday reinforces past research showing the connection between good afterschool and good school-day attendance. It makes sense, given the sense of belonging, the connection to caring adults and the academic enrichment that many afterschool programs provide.

But often improved attendance is merely a byproduct, rather than a stated goal of the program. Attendance Works partnered with three state afterschool networks to see what would happen if these programs made reducing chronic absence an intentional part of their mission. What data would they have to collect or seek from schools? What sort of professional development would afterschool providers need?

Working with networks from Maryland, Utah and Pennsylvania, with support from the C.S. Mott Foundation, helped strengthen their capacity to engage the providers in leveraging afterschool programming to reduce chronic school absence.

We explored sticking points, such as gaining access to school attendance records and sharing with teachers. And we polled site directors to see how they collected and used attendance data, how they collaborated with school officials and how much attention they paid to school attendance.

We also found some promising programs: In rural Pennsylvania, the SHINE program’s focus on reducing absences has led to higher school attendance rates, improved communications with parents and a remarkable collaboration with school teachers. In Baltimore, the Family League is using its position as a funder to encourage providers to target and address the needs of chronically absent students. An analysis of attendance data found that students participating in League-funded afterschool programs had better attendance than their peers.

The AfterZone, the Providence, R.I., program studied in the report released this week, is a partnership among local public agencies and nonprofit organizations. The program is centered in communities where youth live and go to school.

The study followed 763 students from six Providence middle schools who were in the sixth grade at the start of the study. Nearly half (354) participated in the AfterZone during the 2008-09 school year. Researchers followed them for two years.

Attendance gains came in both years of the program. In their second year, AfterZone students missed three fewer days on average (about nine days instead of 12) than the students not in the program.

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