School Participation

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school participation

Students, staff, and families all play a critical role in building and maintaining a safe and supportive learning environment.

A strong connection between staff, students, families, and the school setting creates a positive climate as demonstrated by participation in school activities and governance, as well as the inclusion of the community at large into school activities. About 1 in 6 students – 16 percent of the student population – missed 15 or more days of school in 2015-16. Behavioral engagement in school activities is essential to school participation.

 

Featured Resources

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Analyzes effective, readily scalable approaches to address high levels of absenteeism, covering topics ranging from family engagement to the value of attendance incentives, as well as students’ social and emotional well-being. 

Niagara Falls City School District (NFCSD) is using the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration grant initiative to provide new wraparound support services to students and families.
Niagara Falls City School District providing new wraparound support services to students and families.
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Promotes better policy and practice around school attendance, including tracking chronic absence data for each student beginning in kindergarten, or ideally earlier, and partnering with families and community agencies to intervene when poor attendance is a problem for students or schools.

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Presents findings from a study that tested four versions of an adaptive text messaging strategy to see which, if any, would reduce chronic absence and improve achievement among 26,000 elementary school students. All four versions of the adaptive text messaging strategy reduced chronic absence but did not improve achievement after one school year.

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Provides the theory, research, and practical examples for working with students to improve schools. Includes a five step cycle of listening, validating, authorizing, mobilizing, and reflecting on student voice along with tools to measure student voice quality.

NCSE book cover - Tool Kit for Creating Your Own Truancy Reduction Program

Includes an overview of research on truancy, including extent of the problem, consequences, contributing factors, and programs that have improved school attendance; addresses legal and economic issues of truancy and addressing the problem; and provides a list of references and resources to aid in engaging parents and communities and finding alternatives to juvenile court, among other issues.

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The contents of the National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments Web site were assembled under contracts from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Safe and Supportive Schools to the American Institutes for Research (AIR), Contract Number  91990021A0020.

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