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.
Personalized messages—sent via email, text message, robocall, or letters by mail—are a low-effort, low-cost strategy designed to improve attendance by providing families and caregivers with transparent, real-time information about their student’s
This national randomized study finds that low-cost personalized attendance messages to caregivers significantly reduced student absences in rural districts and represent a scalable, cost-effective strategy for improving attendance.
This multi-site randomized study finds that personalized digital attendance messages reduced student absences by 2.4% across rural districts, demonstrating the effectiveness of low-cost informational nudges within a rural research network model.
Summer school consistently boosted students’ math achievement in 2022 and 2023 but had no impact on reading. The math gains were modest, equivalent to about 2 to 3 weeks of learning during the school year.
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
This brief describes NCRERN’s national replication network, which tests whether personalized attendance messaging—shown to reduce absenteeism in rural pilot districts—can effectively scale across rural schools nationwide.
This brief outlines NCRERN’s New York and Ohio Rural Research Network, highlighting how rural districts collaborate through a structured continuous improvement process to pilot, evaluate, and scale evidence-based interventions in attendance and
