Reducing Chronic Absenteeism in Columbus City Schools

The goal of this collaboration is to assist CCS in meeting the district’s objective of reducing chronic absenteeism to under 50% by 2026. To help achieve this goal, this project has the following aims:

• Evaluate CCS attendance improvement strategies focused on prevention and early intervention to reduce chronic absenteeism among pre-K-12 students.
• Assess the root causes of chronic absenteeism among pre-K-12 students in CCS.
• Identify potential points of improvement and new promising interventions, and evaluate their effectiveness in reducing chronic absenteeism among pre-K-12 students in CCS.

We will start by capitalizing on the large, existing administrative data collected by CCS. We will combine the administrative data from CCS with data from the City of Columbus Mayor’s Office and the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, to understand and identify broader structural barriers to school attendance. Interviews with individuals and focus groups will identify themes that represent the root causes of chronic absenteeism for CCS students and to understand what themes are most prevalent for different groups. Using the knowledge gleaned from data sets and interviews, we aim to assist in the development and testing of bold new strategies and intervention models, whose strengths and challenges can be quickly identified and lead to real-time improvements in practice. The models can then be adapted and rolled out across the district.