Supported by state aid, New York City schools developed a plan to reduce the dropout rate and improve attendance during 1984-85. The program focused on high-risk middle and high school students with severe attendance problems and featured attendance outreach, alternative educational programs, and guidance, counseling, health, and other services.…

Anti-truancy efforts are not new, but there are powerful new incentives which are now spurring school officials' interest in keeping students in class and their school. Not only does the "No Child Left Behind" Act require schools to boost student attendance and lower dropout rates, schools will never be able to succeed in meeting the law's Annual…

Two authors discuss contrasting methods of dropout prevention. Debates the effectiveness of coercion as opposed to positive incentives to keep students in school. (FMW)

Des Moines, Iowa's School within a School is locally funded program of instruction in basic skills, career guidance, and counseling support to meet needs of at-risk seventh- to tenth-grade students attending city's comprehensive middle and high schools. Program evaluations indicate declining dropout rate, increased attendance, and progress toward…

Dropping out of school has long-term financial and social costs for children and society. This bulletin describes promising new efforts across the country to reduce the number of juveniles who leave school prematurely and who are at risk of delinquency because they are truants or dropouts, afraid to attend schools, suspended or expelled, or in…

The report summarizes the evaluation of the 1985-86 Special Education Attendance Improvement/Dropout Prevention and Dropout Prevention (AIDP/DPP) programs which operated at 45 sites in New York City. City tax-levy DPP funds were allocated during the 1985-86 school year to the Division of Special Education to expand existing state-funded services…

The transfer to a new school or grade has been identified as a typical transition period for students that is usually characterized by declining academic performance and increased absences. At the close of the 1991-92 academic year 26% of 9th-grade students in a large urban high school were failing 50% or more of their courses. A preventive…

This document, the first part of a two-part evaluation of the third-year implementation of New York City's 3-year Dropout Prevention Initiative (DPI), is the final evaluation report of implementation of the DPI middle school component, called the Dropout Prevention Program (DPP), conducted in 29 schools. Case-management services and some…

The Attendance Improvement Dropout Prevention program (A.I.D.P.) is a state-funded, multi-faceted program designed to provide services to students considered to be at risk of dropping out of school. The elementary school A.I.D.P. program is comprised of six components: facilitation, attendance outreach, guidance, health, school-level linkage, and…

This report assesses the first year of a school achievement program in Lowell, Massachusetts (Lowell Achievement Program, LAP). The program targeted seventh and eighth grade students who were at risk for dropping out of school. The main goals of the program were to identify these students and to stimulate them to participate in their own learning…

In this publication, six critical components of successful truancy intervention programs have been identified. Each component is discussed based on the research as well as practical considerations. Several program examples are provided at the end of each discussion. Approaches employed by these examples are designated model programs, promising…

Two hundred ninth-grade students with low grade point averages and high absenteeism rates were provided tutoring services, and their teachers were provided consultation to make the classroom environment less punitive. The classroom environment became more positive, more students completed assignments, and dropouts and suspensions decreased.…

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a solution-focused, alternative school in preventing students from dropping out of high school. A quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest group design was used with 85 students to examine differences in credits earned, attendance, and graduation rates. Follow-up data on students in the experimental group were…

This project described methods of early identification and implementation of various interventions used to increase achievement of students at risk in grades three, four, and five at John D. Floyd Elementary School in Spring Hill, Florida. The 51 children who qualified for and were enrolled in the dropout prevention program had achievement scores…

Although each of the 11 programs evaluated in this report during the 1989-90 school year had its own unique design and objectives, their common goal was to increase the likelihood that at-risk students in Cleveland (Ohio) schools would complete their high school education. Programs were evaluated in terms of changes from the previous year in the…