While COVID-19-related school closures in spring 2020 challenged every school district, students in rural districts faced especially significant barriers. In particular, lack of consistent internet limited their access to online instruction.
This case study illustrates how rural districts used NCRERN’s continuous improvement cycle to identify, test, and refine attendance interventions—highlighting both evidence of impact and practical lessons about implementation in rural settings.
This brief finds that personalized messaging—and to a lesser extent family engagement—reduced student absences in rural districts, while mentoring and postcards showed no consistent attendance benefits.
This brief shows that absenteeism in rural New York and Ohio districts—particularly in upper grades—is closely linked to lower academic achievement, underscoring the importance of broad attendance improvement strategies beyond focusing solely on
