Improving Rural Attendance: Results from Six Pilots in NCRERN's New York & Ohio Rural Research Network

This updated brief reports results from six randomized attendance intervention pilots conducted in rural New York and Ohio districts through NCRERN during the 2020–21 and 2021–22 school years. Despite implementation challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, districts rigorously evaluated four attendance strategies: personalized messaging, mentoring, postcards, and family engagement. Results show that personalized messaging reduced student absences by 2.35% with 83% certainty, representing a small but reliable improvement. In 2021–22, family engagement showed a larger estimated reduction in absences (6.8%) with high certainty of any reduction, though evidence of a large effect was less certain. In contrast, postcards and mentoring did not produce consistent or certain reductions in absences across pilot years. The findings highlight that low-cost, scalable communication strategies—especially personalized attendance messaging—can meaningfully improve attendance in rural districts when implemented with fidelity and evaluated rigorously.