The
National Center for School Engagement (NCSE) has completed a large
number of projects related to truancy reduction, and continues
to work on more. The Truancy Reduction Committee recently
met during the NCSE Summit on September 20, 2005.
The goals
of the Truancy Reduction Committee meeting were two-fold: 1) to
ensure that committee members are aware of the full range of NCSE's
work in truancy reduction evaluation, and 2) to learn how committee
members can contribute to the efforts of NCSE. To these
ends, committee members briefly reviewed on-going and recently
completed truancy-related projects including those funded by the
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the National
Truancy Prevention Association, the National Dropout Prevention
Center, the Illinois Department of Health and Human Services,
the Colorado Division of Justice, the Colorado Department of Education,
and Denver Public Schools.
As
part of the evaluation of OJJDP-funded Truancy Reduction Projects,
NCSE created a web-based system of collecting data on the progress
of truant students being served by a truancy reduction program.
The database is called TRAIN, short for Truancy Reduction Application
Interface. (For more information on TRAIN visit NCSE).
During the
committee meeting, significant discussion revolved around the
potential for using TRAIN in a wider range of programs and the
upgrades that are anticipated to make TRAIN more useful among
a broader set of program types. The potential for garnering
the expertise of juvenile and family court judges was discussed,
as well as the most effective sentencing practices for truancy
youth sent to court.
Committee
members agreed that meeting in person is far more effective than
holding conference calls, so possible convenient locations for
meetings and the feasibility of traveling to committee meetings
was also discussed.
Judge
Joan Byer of the Jefferson County,
Kentucky
Family Court participating in the
Truancy
Reduction Committee meeting.
Attendees
at the Truancy Reduction Committee meeting were: Judge Joan
Byer of Jefferson County, Kentucky Family Court, Jeff Kuhn of
the National Truancy Prevention Association, Augie Diana of the
Center for Substance Abuse, along with Krystina Finlay and Jodi
Heilbrunn of NCSE.
Article
was written by Jodi Heilbrunn, NCSE Senior Research and Policy
Analyst at the Colorado Foundation for Families and Children.
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The
Bullying Research Committee of the Advisory Council at NCSE held
its first meeting on September 20th at the Inn at Keystone, CO.
Attendees included Janet Chiancone of the Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Dorothy Espelage of the University
of Illinois at Champaign, Rebecca Kilburn from RAND Corporation,
Sharon Mihalic of the University of Colorado at Boulder, as well
as Ken Seeley, President and Marty Tombari, Senior Research Analyst
both from NCSE.
The principal
topic of discussion was the bullying research grant awarded to
NCSE from OJJDP. The purpose of this three-year research
project is to establish empirically a link among bullying, truancy,
and delinquency. The primary accomplishments of the study
will be a major literature review and policy brief on the topic
of bullying, a guidebook of best practices, and a causal model
linking variables such as bullying, achievement, school attachment,
truancy, suspension, expulsions and delinquency.
The principal
research strategies will involve meta-regressions of interventions
reported in the bullying research literature, analyses of longitudinal
data from youth surveys conducted both at national and state levels,
and qualitative analyses of selected children identified as bullies
and bystanders. Meta-regressions involve procedures that
help to identify the most successful strategies for dealing with
bullying that are reported in scientific journals. Longitudinal
surveys collect data on the same youth over a number of years.
These data will allow us to correlate events that happened earlier
in a child's life (e.g. being bullied) with events that happened
later (e.g. missing school, or doing poorly in school).
Finally qualitative analysis take us "inside the numbers",
and allow us to see how events like bullying, or interventions
that deal with bullying, have actually impacted the lives of individual
children.
Ken Seeley
and Marty Tombary of NCSE at the
Bullying
Research Committee meeting.
All committee
members affirmed the significance of the research questions and
the feasibility of the project. Ken Seeley and Marty Tombari
are preparing a logic model based on the feedback from the committee.
Immediate tasks involve identifying potential data bases, researchers
who have access to these sources of data, and criteria for
conducting the meta-regressons.
Article
was written by Marty Tombari, NCSE Senior Research Analyst at
the Colorado Foundation for Families and Children
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The NCSE
Training and Technical Assistance Subcommittee met for the first
time on September 20, 2005. The meeting was part of the
National Summit for Leaders in School Engagement, and was attended
by the following seven participants:
- Katy Anthes, Education Commission of the States
- Diana Bowman, National Center for Homeless
Education at SERVE
- Larry Curry, The Curry Center and Colorado
Foundation for Families and Children Board
Member
- Jose Esquibel, Colorado Dept. of Health and
Environment and Colorado Foundation for Families
and Children Board Member
- Janelle Krueger, Colorado Dept. of Education and
Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools
- Judith Martinez, NCSE
- Lawrence Murray, Center for Addiction and
Substance Abuse at Columbia University
The
group primarily discussed outreach and marketing, methods of training,
and approaches to technical assistance. There was agreement
that the NCSE website is a great venue to provide comprehensive
information about school engagement and is also a tool to market
NCSE services. The group cautioned that it's important for
NCSE to balance marketing and technical assistance with capacity.
The message was: "reach out to key stakeholders, but be sure
to develop a cadre of speakers and trainers who can respond to
requests."
To expand
training and technical assistance, it was suggested that NCSE
continue exploring the use of videoconferencing and web-based
technology. To enhance technical assistance, subcommittee
members recommended the use of incentives and discounts to encourage
groups in following-up with training sessions. They also
suggested that "occupational cultures" be indentified,
which would enable NCSE to tailor services accordingly.
Judy
Martinez, Director of NCSE, gives a
presentation
on NCSE services to the
Advistory
Council.
The
subcommittee advised NCSE to learn more about what other groups
are doing in the area of training and technical assistance to
avoid duplication and identify potential partners. To evaluate
services, members noted the importance of tracking how customers
utilize the information shared.
Overall
subcommittee members were very supportive of the work of NCSE.
They identified resources they could share and suggested ways
to work collaboratively to promote school success for all students.
Article written by
Judy Martinez, Director of NCSE.
To
View Additional Photos of the First Annual National Summit for
Leaders in School Engagement Visit the Photo Library
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