{"id":5417,"date":"2022-08-30T13:21:45","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T12:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/fvwlric\/?p=5417"},"modified":"2022-08-30T13:21:45","modified_gmt":"2022-08-30T12:21:45","slug":"3-can-informing-parents-help-high-school-students-show-up-for-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/fvwlric\/3-can-informing-parents-help-high-school-students-show-up-for-school\/","title":{"rendered":"3. Can Informing Parents Help High School Students Show Up for School?\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Forth Valley and West Lothian Regional Improvement Collaborative<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Attendance Focus: August -October 2022<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Research Summary<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Research reference (with link)<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Can Informing Parents Help High School Students Show Up for School?<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Research methodology \/ Data Collection methods<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Quantitative study of the attendance of students in 2 groups; those receiving daily absence alerts in voicemail form and those receiving voicemail plus additional text messages, over 71 days in a school year.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This intervention used text messaging to send daily absence updates and weekly attendance summaries to guardians of students in New York City High Schools. Students were assigned randomly to receive the messages and guardians were automatically opted in to the study with the opportunity to \u2018opt out\u2019 if they chose to. The system did not replace the existing automated robo voicemails that were already being sent to guardians. Both the control group and the text message groups still received these.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The intervention took place during the second semester of the 2015 – 16 school year.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Text messages were sent between 6pm and 10pm on the day of absence and did not frame the information in a positive or negative way or prompt guardians to take any further action. Each message was sent in the student\u2019s first language, to any guardian whose phone number was associated with them. The school contact information was also included within the messages.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Key relevant findings\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Generally, both groups were similar to each other at the start of the study in terms of their attendance during the first semester, the % of the group containing students with chronic absenteeism and % of households with a non-English speaker.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The evaluation found that there was no change in attendance for those students who received the text message information. Both groups had second semester attendance of about 86%. There was a pattern of attendance noted for both groups across the semester; attendance declined across the course of the semester, after a holiday and after the weekend. Attendance for both groups declined in the second semester compared to the first.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There were no statistical differences in attendance for different sub groups e.g by grade level, those with only 1 guardian receiving messages compared to 2, or those with English as an additional language.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Explanations for the lack of meaningful effects of the study concluded that:\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The study may have been too broad as it targeted all students, not specifically those with chronic absences.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    1. The intervention gave parents no further informational support to prompt them to take action on absences.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \n
      1. The intervention may have needed to have taken place at a different time or for a longer period of time.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
          \n
        1. The continued use of the original voicemail system for the text message group may have been overload for the parents receiving both types of alert.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          The report recommendations are:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

            \n
          1. Target attendance interventions on students in the first year of high school.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
              \n
            1. Build relationships with parents so they regard information on absence as being non-punitive.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
                \n
              1. Engage parents and students together to address barriers to attendance.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Questions research raises<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
How meaningful is the information we share with parents regarding pupil absence?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How can we best engage with parents without overloading them?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How do we engage parents and students together to address barriers to attendance?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What referrals and services are available to support parents in promoting attendance? How do we inform parents about these?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Follow up reading suggestions\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Bruce, Mary, John M. Bridgeland, Joanna Hornig Fox, and Robert Balfanz. 2011. <\/span>On Track for Success: The Use<\/span><\/i> of Early Warning Indicator and Intervention Systems to<\/span><\/i> Build a Grad Nation<\/span><\/i>. Washington, DC: Civic Enterprises.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Balfanz, Robert, and Vaughan Byrnes. 2014. <\/span>A Report on the New York City Mayor\u2019s Interagency Task Force on Truancy, Chronic Absenteeism, and School Engagement<\/span><\/i>.<\/span> Baltimore: Everyone Graduates Center, Johns Hopkins<\/span> University.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Forth Valley and West Lothian Regional Improvement Collaborative\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Attendance Focus: August -October 2022\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Research Summary\u00a0 Research reference (with link)\u00a0 \u00a0 Can Informing Parents Help High School Students Show Up for School?\u00a0\u00a0 Research methodology \/ Data Collection methods\u00a0 Quantitative study of the attendance of students in 2 groups; those receiving daily absence …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79351,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/fvwlric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/fvwlric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/fvwlric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/fvwlric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79351"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/fvwlric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/fvwlric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5418,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/fvwlric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5417\/revisions\/5418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/fvwlric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/fvwlric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/fvwlric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}