Attendance rates improve when a school develops meaningful family engagement, and when students feel safe and have positive relationships with peers and teachers. According to new research from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, these positive factors of school climate have become especially impactful since the pandemic.
Findings from the first year of a multi-year study examine the causes, consequences and impacts of absenteeism in Chicago schools in post-pandemic years relative to pre-pandemic years among students in grades 6-11.
Researchers noted that common sense dictates that the more students are present in class, the more they can learn; and the more they’re absent, the more their grades and test scores drop. Their findings simply emphasize for local educational agency leaders the importance of supporting positive climate when aiming to improve attendance.
“Our analysis showing that schools serving similar students from similar neighborhoods can have very different absence rates strongly suggests that schools can influence the degree to which students are absent from school, if they know what to focus on and have the resources needed,” the report states. “Improving school climate takes time and sustained effort; it’s about real, felt changes in the school, not just higher numbers on survey reports. But this research adds to the growing body of evidence showing that improving school climate is one of the most effective ways to improve student achievement and students’ long-term outcomes.”
In addition to students with lower attendance rates having lower grades and test scores, researchers found that the connection between positive school climate and higher rates of attendance is even stronger today than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many LEAs seeking to determine a baseline for the state of their school climate turn to surveys. According to the report, the student and teacher survey measures that most strongly connect with attendance include questions related to relationships with peers and teachers; finding value and meaning in classes; sense of safety; and teacher-parent relationships.
Researchers determined that although LEAs can take meaningful steps to improve school climate, they cannot address many of the underlying issues that impact it on their own.
“While these findings underscore the ability of schools to influence student attendance, it is also important to acknowledge that schools alone are neither the cause nor the solution to increases in chronic absenteeism rates,” the report concludes. “Students’ attendance is affected by many things outside of school, and while school practices can, and do, make a big difference, school staff cannot shoulder the role of supporting students and families alone. This study does not address the barriers that schools face implementing strong practices, the resources they need, or the specific practices that are most effective.”
