Date of Award
2003
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Fischler Graduate School of Education and Human Services
Advisor
Karen Kimball
Committee Member
Lucille Beisner
Committee Member
Barbara Packer
Keywords
absenteeism, attendance, community leaders, creative curriculum leadership, dropout, educators, learning settings, middle schools, nonattendance, Operation Outreach, Port Arthur, promotion, retained students, school attendance, school year 2001-2002, state assessment scores, student attitudes, truancy
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to provide a program designed to address the problem of poor attendance at a middle school in Port Arthur, Texas. The middle school has consistently exhibited poor attendance. This problem has resulted from a few students missing a large number of days. This study identified these nonattendees as students who are absent 20 or more days during the school year.
Operation Outreach was created to provide service for students who were retained because of nonattendance at school. The program was created and maintained through the organization of a learning setting composed of community leaders and educators. D. Brubaker’s (1994) 3 elements of creative curriculum leadership were used as a guide to make conclusions about this program. The curriculum leaders knew the rules and established what needs existed. They created a vision of the action required to meet the needs and explored what was possible.
Operation Outreach improved the attendance of 20 students during the 2001-2002 school year. This improved attendance resulted in the promotion of 17 of the 20 students. This represents an 85% increase in promotion for those students. The state assessment scores of the 20 students improved from their 2000-2001 mastery levels, and the students expressed a positive attitude about their experience.