How Detroit neighborhood teams assist colleges enhance pupil attendance

Sixth grader Ke’Von Thomas and a gaggle of classmates at Detroit’s Durfee Elementary-Center Faculty sat round a cafeteria desk sooner or later final month, working by way of an inventory of 10 back-to-school suggestions and vying to see who had accomplished essentially the most.

“Early to mattress, early to rise,” was the primary tip. Others included “set up a routine,” “set up your backpack,” and “restrict display time.”

Ke’Von, 11, mentioned he had achieved three suggestions because the college yr began, and surveyed the others. “I did No. 1. You probably did No. 2,” he instructed one of many different boys. “Who else did No. 2?”

Throughout from him, seventh grader Miguel Perkins mentioned he had adopted 5 of the guidelines.

The checklist and the train got here from The Konnection, a neighborhood group that’s working with Detroit colleges to assist inspire college students to indicate up for varsity and “transfer the needle” on persistent absenteeism. Founder Sharnese Marshall makes use of the lesson early within the college yr to bolster optimistic attendance and educational habits with 20 center college college students who take part in a biweekly after-school program at Durfee.

In a metropolis with sky-high charges of persistent absenteeism — which means college students who miss 18 college days a yr or extra — neighborhood teams like The Konnection have taken on a number of the work of attempting to enhance pupil attendance. Church buildings, after-school applications, well being facilities, and different teams have offered companies reminiscent of driving college students to and from college, conducting residence visits and cellphone calls, and constructing connections with households.

These teams don’t essentially have the assets to assault what specialists agree is the foundation reason for persistent absenteeism: Detroit’s widespread poverty, whose ripple results embrace well being issues, housing instability, and job obstacles. So it’s laborious to find out what influence they’re having on the broader drawback.

Nonetheless, they’ve grow to be a necessary complement to the efforts by college officers and schooling advocates to enhance attendance. With initiatives focused at particular colleges, neighborhoods, or household wants, they’re chipping away at an issue that has lengthy undermined efforts to enhance pupil achievement. And college leaders and district officers are embracing a few of their efforts and techniques as a part of their strategy to lowering persistent absenteeism citywide.

Sarah Lenhoff, a Wayne State College schooling professor whose analysis consists of research of pupil attendance, says there’s room for nonetheless extra neighborhood teams and native companies to become involved on the root-cause stage.

“Poverty alleviation, employment, job coaching, housing stability — these are main elements in whether or not children can get to highschool,” Lenhoff mentioned. “Exterior organizations which can be engaged on these points, even when it’s not related to the college system, may additionally make a distinction.”

DPSCD attendance plan evolves

Group teams have been working with Detroit college communities on absenteeism for greater than a decade. However the Detroit Public Colleges Group District formalized and standardized their position in attendance interventions starting in 2018-19, a few years after the district emerged from state management.

Associated: Detroit neighborhood teams have a protracted report of attendance work

That yr, DPSCD outlined a plan that known as for a holistic strategy to enhancing attendance by way of wraparound companies for college students, hiring attendance brokers, and partnerships with neighborhood organizations. The plan fell in keeping with rising consensus amongst advocates and nationwide specialists that districts ought to collaborate with native companions to help school-based attendance interventions.

Partly on account of that plan, DPSCD diminished its persistent absenteeism price to 62% on the finish of 2018-19, from 70% the earlier yr.

The pandemic not solely erased that progress, however raised the urgency of enhancing attendance: If college students didn’t present up for sophistication, they’d wrestle to get well what they misplaced academically throughout a yr or extra of on-line education.

And the consequences of extreme absenteeism linger for years, analysis exhibits. College students who miss a variety of college are more likely to wrestle to remain on high of classwork, carry out worse on standardized checks, and are extra more likely to drop out. Chronically absent college students are additionally more likely to miss out on high-dosage tutoring and different interventions college programs have prioritized lately to counter studying loss.

A 2022 research by the Detroit Partnership for Training Fairness & Analysis discovered that the district’s 2018-19 attendance plan, whereas exhibiting early success, “solely partially addressed persistent absenteeism as an ecological difficulty, implicitly downplaying structural and materials obstacles that households confronted.”

It’s these systemic points, Lenhoff mentioned, that require higher coordination between the district and metropolis companies and social companies organizations, reminiscent of welfare and employment applications, and housing organizations.

She factors to FosterEd Arizona, a baby welfare program that coordinated with colleges to enhance attendance amongst foster youth, in addition to a multiyear attendance effort in New York Metropolis that collaborated with metropolis social service companies. In each circumstances, college attendance knowledge guided the implementation of interventions.

“There’s potential to actually make a distinction if we bought extra teams concerned in the neighborhood improvement house who’re engaged on housing, poverty, and unemployment, to be occupied with how would possibly we monitor the attendance of the households that we’re working with and show that work like this might be helpful,” Lenhoff mentioned.

DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti mentioned that due to federal schooling privateness legal guidelines, the district has to work inside some limits on how a lot info it may share with outdoors social service teams. It does share attendance knowledge with some neighborhood teams that present programming for college students, reminiscent of Metropolis Yr and Communities in Colleges, he mentioned.

However that’s not attainable for all teams with out getting permission from particular person households or by way of clearance. It’s unclear how the Arizona and New York applications have been capable of share attendance knowledge with social service companies.

“We may envision our district portal system offering entry to companions to allow them to reply to detrimental attendance developments,” Vitti mentioned. “Nevertheless, this may take signoff from households and important upgrades to the system we’re constructing now. This may be unattainable with no strong expertise system. You can’t depend on spreadsheets to make this work.”

Because the begin of the pandemic, DPSCD officers have quickly expanded their wraparound companies for a number of the most marginalized households, embracing the sorts of tasks that neighborhood teams have been tackling in particular communities.

With the assistance of $4.5 million in philanthropic donations, DPSCD is launching 12 school-based well being hubs throughout the town over the following a number of years to handle the shortage of pupil entry to well being care, a significant barrier to constant attendance.

On the well being hubs, college students, households, and neighborhood members can get bodily, psychological, and dental well being companies by way of present partnerships with Henry Ford Well being and Ascension. In addition they have entry to meals pantry gadgets and authorized help.

One of many first few well being hubs opening this yr is at Durfee and Central Excessive Faculty, which share a constructing within the metropolis’s Dexter-Linwood neighborhood. On the websites which can be already open, households have been making well being appointments and choosing up well being necessities like rest room paper, cleaning soap, and toothbrushes.

“We imagine in entire baby dedication,” Alycia Meriweather, DPSCD deputy superintendent of exterior partnerships and innovation, mentioned at a latest neighborhood assembly on the brand new initiative.

The Konnection responds to lack of fundamental provides

Durfee and Central have among the many highest absenteeism charges inside DPSCD: 82% at Durfee final yr, and 91% at Central. It’s why Marshall and The Konnection started working there way back to 2020.

Some college students instructed Marshall they weren’t exhibiting as much as college as a result of they didn’t have private hygiene merchandise or clear garments. Others mentioned college is boring, or they’re behind on work and don’t have the help to catch up.

On high of these challenges, in-school elements reminiscent of student-teacher relationships, bullying and security issues additionally create obstacles to attendance.

Marshall responded to these wants by throwing quarterly attendance celebrations at Durfee, and establishing a school-based useful resource closet at Central, stocked with provides college students have to really feel snug coming to highschool.

Prior to now yr, this system’s closet served 275 highschool college students.

“Bullying is an actual factor,” Marshall mentioned. “Youngsters are bullied each single day as a result of they don’t have the nicest garments, or as a result of they don’t odor the freshest.”

Enrichment applications assist college students keep motivated

In addition they launched the after-school Konnection Klub at Durfee, with enrichment applications that make coming to highschool extra partaking. A number of research discover that pupil participation in out-of-school applications can enhance common college attendance, encouraging college students to indicate as much as class.

This yr, The Konnection is collaborating with native entrepreneurs and schools to assist college students discover profession alternatives in culinary arts, podcasting, vogue design, and transit companies. College students within the after-school program additionally obtain mentoring from neighborhood volunteers, apply social-emotional studying actions, and attend discipline journeys to metropolis sports activities and vacation occasions.

“Colleges could also be supporting (college students) academically,” Marshall mentioned, “however enrichment applications may help you mentally and emotionally. They may help you in different ways in which different companions can’t.”

Marshall labored with Durfee’s attendance agent and lecturers to pick individuals who may most profit from this system’s providing. They sought a mixture of college students who’re chronically absent and people who should not.

“We would like the scholars who should not there to really feel supported by the leaders of the college who’re exhibiting up and who do perceive the assignments,” she mentioned. “We attempt to discover a couple in every grade who’re nice college students and do have help at residence in order that they’re capable of pull the opposite children up.”

Ke’Von (pronounced “kay-vaughn”), one of many college students with sturdy grades and near-perfect attendance, had been keen to hitch this system since final yr, when he was in fifth grade.

Leona Wright, an eighth grader at Durfee, was one of many college students who wanted the added help. She has routinely missed college on Mondays and Fridays this yr, days her mom, Shavonne Jones, has to work late.

Jones works as a cook dinner in a nursing residence in Bloomfield Hills, a few 30-minute drive from Durfee. She says that between her and her fiancé’s work schedules, it has been tough to persistently get Leona to highschool on days they’re each working.

“On Mondays, I’ve to be at work at 6 within the morning,” she mentioned. “Then on Fridays, I’m going to work at 10:30, so I can take her to highschool however I gained’t have the ability to choose her again up from college.”

Jones added: “There’s simply a variety of difficulties with that. My job is knowing typically, however most jobs don’t need you to go away like that throughout the day.”

The household lives outdoors of the college’s boundary for yellow bus transportation as effectively, and Jones isn’t snug along with her daughter using the town bus.

One week in November, Leona was sick with the flu, prompting Jones to remain residence from work to care for her.

Marshall has sought out completely different options to some college students’ transportation obstacles, providing households Uber reward playing cards, asking volunteers to supply rides, or directing households to assets already accessible by way of the district, reminiscent of free bus passes.

Working the after-school program till 5:30, she added, offers some flexibility to households who can’t make the common afternoon pickup time.

“It undoubtedly helps the mother and father who’re working, as a result of a variety of occasions the youngsters are going residence by themselves or they’re simply hanging out in class,” Marshall mentioned.

Leona says she’d quite be in school than at residence. Previous to this yr, she was homeschooled for 4 years and missed connecting with different college students in individual. Again at Durfee, she’s enthusiastic about attempting out for the college’s cheer crew and learning math, science, and social research.

And he or she was keen to hitch The Konnection. “I needed to make buddies and expertise my life and go on discipline journeys,” she mentioned.

The Konnection hopes to increase its attain

With a small crew, Marshall has leaned on the help of roughly 150 volunteers prior to now yr to function the useful resource closet, mentor college students, and host attendance celebrations. She’s hoping The Konnection’s efforts could make extra of a distinction at Durfee. Final yr’s persistent absenteeism price was down 12 proportion factors from the earlier yr, mirroring a decline throughout the district as quarantine restrictions eased.

“It’s nonetheless very excessive, however we’re making strides to have the ability to get that down,” she mentioned.

She needs to see this system reengage youthful college students who might already really feel disenchanted with college, or who may need lacked entry to the assets, instruction, and extracurriculars this system offers.

Along with attendance charges, The Konnection additionally tracks grade enhancements, private confidence, and “college students’ want to wish to come to highschool.”

In a survey on the finish of 2022-23, she added, 95% of membership individuals mentioned they felt extra motivated to attend college after being in this system.

This yr, Marshall’s crew is seeking to attain not less than 1,000 college students throughout all its applications. They’re within the technique of establishing a second useful resource closet at Durfee, and strengthening their relationships with neighborhood members outdoors the college.

The final word purpose remains to be the identical, she mentioned: that “100% of our college students can be on monitor when it comes to attendance.”

“We’re attempting to simply bridge the hole the place we are able to,” she mentioned. “Till the insurance policies are modified with a purpose to make sure that our children and our households are actually taken care of and so they’re not ignored, the identical points will proceed to perpetuate.”

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit overlaying Detroit Public Colleges Group District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.