Several areas in the UK allocate children to secondary schools based on exam results at age 11. While many studies have investigated how attending academically selective schools affects pupils' subsequent educational attainment, we know very little about how grammar attendance affects other outcomes, such as pupils' self-confidence, academic…

Issue 4 of the Australian Council for Educational Research's (ACER's) "Policy Insights" series commences with a synthesis of publicly available data on school attendance by Indigenous Australians, highlighting areas of major risk. It explores Australian and international literature to develop an understanding of the risk factors and…

Some pupils already show unexcused, illegal, surreptitious absences in elementary education or the first years of secondary education. Are weak social bonds (see also Hirschi, 1969) and a lack of self-control (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990) indicative of truancy at an early age? Of the children in our sample, 5% were persistent truants in late…

The current study replicates work of Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northeast and Islands. It describes dropout prevention programs in nine Mid-Atlantic Region (Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) school districts serving communities with populations of 24,742-107,250 (as of July 2008). All nine…

Examines truancy characteristics, effective attendance policies, and workable attendance enforcement and remediation programs. One school district threatens habitual truants' parents with court action leading to fines and jail sentences. A worthy goal is encouraging both students and parents to take compulsory education statutes seriously. (MLH)

Procedures successful for one school in establishing good attendance include phone calls on all unexplained absences, discipline for unexcused absences, incentives for good attendance, charting attendance patterns, and staff coordination for monitoring attendance. Increased state aid, a more positive school climate, and greater student achievement…

After reviewing the extent of in-school truancy in the Detroit high schools, the author offers three recommendations centering on the adoption and enforcement of attendance policies that lead the student to acceptance of personal responsibility for his/her attendance. (Author/IRT)

Offers school administrators 10 rationales for explaining student suspensions to inquiring parents. Suspension is a way to punish parents or call an "enforced parent conference" to enlist their support. Ideally, suspension creates an opportunity for positive home/school partnerships. (MLH)

A unique approach to dealing with truancy gives students "instant" credit for work completed at the end of each marking period. (Author/MLF)

Describes a program in which, once a student is identified as a chronic truant, the skill deficiencies that cause his problems are diagnosed and corrective lessons are begun. (IRT)

The addition of an attendance clerk and the implementation of a system that stresses the importance of attendance have worked well to reduce absenteeism at North Harford Senior High School in Pylesville, Maryland. (Author/MLF)

Offers 50 basic steps to help administrators and teachers improve student attendance. (MD)

The Richland Northeast High School in Columbia, South Carolina, finds an after-school detention program and a student supreme court to be successful in handling discipline problems. (JM)

This composition of related attendance studies of both Canada and the United States includes (1) a review of school attendance/nonattendance literature for 1975-86, the results, and a discussion involving the topics of nonattendance correlations, causes, and intervention; (2) a survey of compulsory school attendance legislation, the results, and a…

Approaches to promote attendance and prevent nonattendance range from methods designed to help individual students with specific attendance problems, to programs aimed at the student bodies of entire school systems. The former approaches usually are well documented as to results, but raise questions regarding generalizability and applicability for…