Social Work Commons^™

An Examination Of The Effectiveness Of An Early Truancy Intervention For Reducing Chronic Absenteeism Amongst At-Risk Students Through The Use Of Regression Discontinuity Analysis, Johanna M. Thomas

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Truancy is a major social problem affecting students, families, schools, and communities in the United States and is associated with low academic achievement, grade retention, and dropout. Truancy is also correlated with other adverse life outcomes including delinquency, substance abuse, and incarceration. Social work best practices literature suggests that truancy interventions should take place before habitual chronic truancy becomes a problem. There are few truancy preventions for elementary-age students that have been empirically assessed. Thus, this study examined the effectiveness of the Truancy Assessment and Service Centers intensive case management intervention for elementary-aged students (N = 700) using a quasi-experimental …