Chronic absenteeism has remained a national issue in the years since the pandemic, causing financial harm to local educational agencies, impacting school climate and interfering with student learning.
As LEA leaders look to address the problem, those in rural areas are seeking solutions that won’t exceed limited resources and staff capacity, and that take into consideration circumstances that their urban and suburban counterparts may not contend with, including transportation barriers. Many are leaning on solutions that take advantage of their unique strengths, like having tight-knit communities.
Sending personalized messages to families is a relatively affordable strategy that can aid in reducing the number of school days missed, according to the working paper “Lifting Up Attendance in Rural Districts: A Multi-Site Trial of a Personalized Messaging Campaign.”
In 2020–21, a pilot program by the National Center for Rural Education Research Networks found promising results in eight districts in New York and Ohio where caregivers were regularly sent text, email or phone updates on absences that encouraged attendance and contact with the school to facilitate improvement. Drawing on that project, researchers embarked on Leveraging Interactions with Families To (LIFT) Up Attendance, a two-year study replicating the intervention that included 47 districts across 16 states in 2022–23 and 2023–24.
The districts all used the same student information system (SIS), Infinite Campus, that is equipped with messaging capabilities, and templates were created for ease of use.
Though there were some challenges with implementation observed among participating districts, researchers found that LIFT Up Attendance reduced absences by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent and cost an average of $4 per student.
“Informational nudges integrated into schools’ existing communications systems have the potential to influence the behavior of students and families in a low-cost, low-effort way,” researchers stated.
The study
The strategy included three templates personalized with the receiver’s name as well as the student’s.
At the beginning of the academic year, a welcome message and an explanation of the study — which K-12 students were randomly selected to participate in — was sent.
Then, every four to six weeks, caregivers would receive one of the other two template options: a message celebrating one or less absences that encouraged families to continue this pattern or, if a student had two or more absences, a message with the exact number of absences along with a reminder of the importance of attendance, a goal for the coming weeks and contact information should they want to discuss anything with the school.
Factors including offering families a holistic picture of attendance, reinforcing the importance of being present in class for academic success, setting a goal and welcoming connection to, and support from, the school in addressing barriers to attendance proved meaningful.
“Our findings suggest that adopting such a strategy is likely a cost-effective way for rural districts to improve student attendance,” researchers stated. “Future adaptations should consider providing additional support for setting up the intervention and reducing complexity as much as possible by, for example, considering using one message template instead of differentiating based on the student’s recent attendance pattern.”
Read the working paper here to learn more.
