Centering School Connectedness – NASBE – National Association of State Boards of Education

Students are voting with their feet. Through rising chronic absenteeism, increases in behavioral challenges, and declines in college enrollment after high school, many students are signaling that school is no longer a place they can or want to be. In short, they feel disconnected. To address this problem, high schools across the country are consolidating disparate student support efforts into a unified approach led by student success teams. State boards can support and elevate this work.

Fostering school connectedness is an effective, universal prevention measure that affects many important student outcomes. Students who are connected to school get better grades, attend more often, have fewer behavioral challenges, graduate from high school, and go to college at higher rates than their disconnected peers.

Centering School Connectedness

Also In this Issue

Getting Students Engaged in Learning

By Jennifer A. Fredricks

Targeted interventions and savvy classroom practices, coupled with supportive state policy, can draw disengaged students back in.

Centering School Connectedness

By Robert Balfanz

High schools are creating student success teams that prioritize relationships and leverage actionable data to reconnect students to school.

Chronic Absence: A Call for Deeper Student and Family Engagement

By Hedy Chang

Connecticut's experience underscores the value of a positive, systemic approach to improving attendance.

Understanding Who Is Missing and Why

By Hailly T.N. Korman

The pandemic only magnified chronic absence among students with the greatest needs and made the problem harder to ignore.

How State Leaders Can Stand Up for the COVID Generation of High Schoolers

By Travis Pillow and Robin Lake

Families need better data on students' academic progress; students need meaningful learning experiences and better information on postsecondary options.

Reengaging High School Students through Career Academies

By Edward C. Fletcher Jr.

When built around four key elements, academies deliver rigorous, relevant learning tied to students' career aspirations.

Trauma-Informed Practices: A Whole-School Policy Framework

By Nicole Reddig and Janet VanLone

State leaders can ensure that more school staff are equipped to help children deal with the effects of trauma.

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From the States

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Challenges persist in attracting and retaining this school-based mental health professionals, but some states, including Virginia, Ohio, Colorado, Michigan, and others, are making progress.
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