Below is a list of research related to attendance

The reports on this page are listed alphabetically and examine the issue of chronic absence nationwide and in selected communities. Use the search box to find research using the author name. See the early education, elementary, secondary and other research categories on the right. To submit new research, please contact us.
Empty Seats: Mississippi School Attendance Officers’ Perspectives on Chronic Absence
Mississippi KIDS Count. Mississippi KIDS COUNT partnered with the Mississippi Department of Education to track chronic absenteeism across the state.Screen During the 2014/15 school year, the statewide chronic absence rate dropped to 13 percent, down from 15 percent during the 2013/14 school year. A web-based survey of school attendance officers in the state collected critical information about why children miss…
Intervening through Influential Third Parties:Reducing Student Absences at Scale via Parents
Rogers, Todd and Avi Feller. Working Paper, 2017. This study analyzed whether information sent home to caregivers of K-12 students could impact chronic absence. Carefully worded messages on postcards reminded parents of the importance of absences and of their ability to influence them, added information about students’ total absences, or added the number of absences among target students’ classmates. The…
A randomized experiment using absenteeism information to “nudge” attendance
Rogers, Todd and T. Duncan. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic, Washington, DC, 2017. This controlled randomized experiment conducted in collaboration with the School District of Philadelphia found that a single postcard that encouraged guardians to improve their student’s attendance reduced absences by roughly 2.4 percent.…
Delayed High School Start Times later than 8:30 a.m. and Impact on Graduation Rates and Attendance Rates
McKeever, Pamela M. and L. Clark. Sleep Health, In Press, March 2017. The authors analyzed the association between a delayed high school start time later than 8:30 a.m. and attendance and graduation rates. Approximately 29 public high schools from eight school districts located throughout seven different states were identified using previous research from the Children’s National Medical Center’s (CNMC) Division…
Impact of Particulate Matter Exposure and Surrounding “Greenness” on Chronic Absenteeism in Massachusetts Public Schools
MacNaughton, Pier, Erika Eitland, et. al., International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, February 2017. Researchers examined the impact two environmental factors, on chronic absenteeism in schools in Massachusetts. They found that improvements in green space and air pollution surrounding schools may result in reductions of chronically absent students, when controlled for other social factors.
Preventing Missed Opportunity: Taking Collective Action to Confront Chronic Absence
Attendance Works and Everyone Graduates Center, September 2016. This brief builds on the first national chronic absence data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection from the 2013-14 school year. The analysis finds that half of the 6.5 million students who are chronically absent nationwide are concentrated in just 4 percent of school districts. The analysis also…
Chronic Absenteeism in Virginia and the Challenged School Divisions: A Descriptive Analysis of Patterns and Correlates
University of Virginia, Luke Miller, and Amanda Johnson. The report finds that one of every 10 students in Virginia was chronically absent in the 2014-15 school year, with higher rates in Norfolk (1 out of every 7 students), in Richmond and Petersburg (1 out of every 5 students). The analysis shows that chronic absenteeism rates are particularly high among high-schoolers,…