Research Zone: New Findings on Spring Slide Impact

As the weather improves and the end of the year feels just within reach, attendance has been known to take a dip, a phenomenon known as the Spring Slide. Not to be taken lightly, spring absences are in fact more harmful because students miss more rigorous lessons that build on the instruction from the fall and winter months. After analyzing 23-24 attendance data from our partner districts, including both students who received our intervention and those who didn’t, we found insights that underscored the power of early intervention, and debunked some convictions around the Spring Slide being a high school only problem. Read on for the details! 

Chronic Absenteeism is Predictable, but Proactive Intervention Can Change Its Course 

In research from earlier this year, our team found that early intervention was critical to ensuring that more students end the year with good attendance. This is even more evident in the data we analyzed from 23-24 specific to the Spring Slide, showing that even by the smallest increments, a student’s absence rate in February was a huge predictor of whether they would end the year chronically absent. 

             Comparing Students Ending the Year Chronically Absent Based on                             Cumulative Absence Rates in February (SY 23-24)

It’s never too late to take action and reverse these chronic absenteeism trends. In fact, now is the perfect time to double down on proactive intervention. Connecting and communicating with families of students who are moderately chronically absent or at-risk of chronic absenteeism has been shown to get students back on track.  Our partners have found success with personalized family communications that inform families of their students' attendance and provide connections to supportive resources to help them overcome barriers to attendance.  In the 23-24 school year, 51% percent of students who received our intervention improved attendance, and 25% of students stopped being chronically absent. 

Forget “Senioritis”… the Spring Slide is Widespread 

Many people think that the Spring Slide is limited to high school students, but our data analysis reveals that this is simply not the case. In fact, absence rates for grade 12 improved in May! Instead, what we have found is that aside from the seniors, students in all grades saw increased absence rates beginning in the spring months through the end of the school year, with some grades seeing more pronounced inclines than others.  

What do these numbers tell us? The PreK-12 Spring Slide is real, absenteeism is prevalent and predictable, but it’s never too late to make positive changes! If you are looking for strategies to beat the Spring Slide, check how our partners are facing it head on with fun competitions and other incentives, along with some other tips from our resident attendance experts. If you are looking for a partner to help you supercharge your proactive outreach, we can help!