As in other districts, attendance dropped and chronic absence spiked during the pandemic in Washoe County School District (WCSD). Students missing too much school continues to be a problem, and is especially concerning for students from historically underserved communities, such as Hispanic, American Indian, and unhoused students. Regular school attendance is critical to learning and success in school. REL West and WCSD are partnering to boost attendance by strengthening and expanding the use of student support interventions that reduce chronic absence.
As part of the district’s broader effort to improve its multi-tiered system of supports framework, WCSD and REL West are engaging in applied research, technical assistance, and dissemination projects to better understand and strengthen implementation of evidence-based tiered interventions, to use data and evidence to continuously improve systems of support, and to expand implementation of evidence-based interventions. These efforts aim to reduce chronic absence, both districtwide and for student groups with disproportionately high chronic absence rates.
Current Projects
This applied research study examines district referral rates to its most intensive intervention for reducing chronic absence, the Student Attendance Review Board (SARB), and rigorously investigates possible disproportionalities in referral rates. The study will document if, and to what extent, there are student or school characteristics related to higher rates of SARB referrals. If disproportionalities are found to exist, the results can motivate the use of more equitable and non-punitive interventions for students with the most persistent attendance problems.
This applied research study will use a matched study design that investigates the extent to which Check-In/Check-Out (CICO) is an effective attendance intervention for middle school students with moderate chronic absence. It will also explore the intervention effects for Black, Hispanic, Native American, and English learner students, and student groups with the highest rates of absenteeism in the district.
Completed Projects
The purpose of this coaching project is to design and conduct an inventory of K–12 student academic, attendance, behavioral, and mental health interventions used in schools across the district in order to obtain an accurate accounting of the district’s tiered interventions and description of implementation of its Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework. The inventory will help the district make decisions, specifically related to strengthening MTSS practices and using evidence-based interventions to reduce chronic absence.
This technical support project builds local capacity to use data to examine Student Attendance Review Board (SARB) referrals. The first phase focuses on co-analysis of the SARB referral forms to document the interventions used and requested to support chronically absent students referred to SARB. The second phase uses administrative data to produce a descriptive profile of referred students, reporting demographic characteristics and attendance outcomes in the years preceding the referral. This project lays the groundwork for a complementary research project that will rigorously investigate the relationship of attendance outcomes and student and school characteristics with SARB referral rates and possible disproportionalities.
REL West is partnering with Washoe County School District to provide training and support for district middle schools to implement the Check-In/Check-Out (CICO) intervention adapted to address attendance challenges. The aim is to prepare the middle schools for a study that will examine the effectiveness of CICO at reducing absenteeism. This project will produce co- developed training materials for the district to use for professional development to ensure CICO implementation fidelity and consistency and data collection tools adapted from the best practices literature on CICO implementation