By Nathan Storey, Johns Hopkins University
During and following the COVID-19 pandemic, chronic absenteeism increased dramatically across the United States, with the largest increase by low-income students. One of the most common approaches schools implement to identify, monitor, and address student absenteeism is the Early Warning System (EWS), intended to provide schools with data about student attendance patterns in time to intervene and address absenteeism. Because existing research has been mixed on the impact of the low-cost program, Canbolat recently examined student attendance and demographic data from 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 to determine the impact of the program on student absenteeism, and if it varied by socio-economic status (SES), given the structural barriers low-SES students face to attend school.
The study focused on a single large urban southeast school district (n=80,000 students, 51% free- and reduced-lunch) where EWS was used for monitoring and intervention guidance as part of a district-wide multi-tiered system of support (MTSS). The study used a sharp regression discontinuity design (RD) with cutoffs based on EWS procedures. Students were identified as at-risk when they had more than a 4% absence rate, while students were identified as off-track when they reached 10% absence.
The author found no significant overall impact of EWS on student attendance for either at-risk or off-track students. However, the impact did differ by SES level for off-track students who were socioeconomically advantaged, reducing the absence rate by 1-2 percentage points (a meaningful difference). This discrepancy suggests that the EWS may not adequately address the structural barriers faced by socioeconomically disadvantaged students, such as the need for increased parental involvement and community support. Alternatively, it may indicate that the EWS is ineffective when dealing with a large number of moderately or chronically absent students. The author suggests several policy and practical improvements to enhance the effectiveness of the EWS. These include forging partnerships with community organizations and implementing targeted communications to dispel common parental misconceptions about attendance.
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