Date of Award
2004
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Fischler Graduate School of Education and Human Services
Advisor
Harvey Sadoff
Committee Member
Dennis Triplett
Committee Member
Barbara Packer
Keywords
academic achievement, academic averages, attendance awards, attendance monitoring, attendance rates, Brookside, Bragg Middle School, chronic absenteeism, climate enhancement, community involvement, middle school students, parent contacts, parent feedback, parent involvement, parent participation, parent training, positive teacher-parent interactions, school attendance, school climate, student attendance, teacher training, truancy, unexcused absences
Abstract
This applied dissertation was designed to describe a program that targeted 86 students from Bragg Middle School (BMS) who had chronic absences. The school district defined chronic absences as five or more unexcused absences in a semester. The students from the Brookside community, in which the 86 students resided, had a lower rate of school attendance at 84.1% than did the rest of the school’s population at 96.3%.
The writer developed interventions designed to combat the excessive absences of the targeted students involved a combination of strategies, such as attendance monitoring, parent training, parent involvement activities, teacher training, attendance awards, and climate enhancement. These strategies were used by the researcher to ensure that the attendance of the targeted students improved.
The outcome of this applied dissertation was to have targeted students reduce their absences to three or less for the school year. Furthermore, parents would show an increase in their school participation by making four contacts a year. The attendance rate for the Brookside community students would increase from 84.1% to 90.0%. Finally, students would increase their academic average by 10 points and teachers will demonstrate an increase in positive interactions with parents.
An analysis of the data revealed that only 79 of the 86 targeted students reduced their absences. Ninety-five percent of the parents did make four or more school contacts. The attendance rate for the Brookside community students rose to 92.8%. Seventy-seven of the targeted students improved their academic average by 10 points. Teachers did show an increase in positive interactions with parents based on parent feedback.