Gulfton Truancy Reduction Demonstration Project, Houston, TX

CHAPTER THREE: CASE MANAGEMENT
School Attendance
We analysed 33 sets of school records on truant Lee High School students who received
case management for truancy during the 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 school years. In addition,
both Lee High School and Milby High School provided school records on students who met the
definition of truancy but were not selected for case management. There were 91 comparison
students, 25 from Lee and 66 from Milby.
Attendance was examined for the school year 2004-2005. During the first semester, Fall
2004, the comparison students (those who did not receive case management) had significantly
fewer absences than the treatment students. On average, comparison students missed 1.40 days
per week compared to treatment students who missed an average of 1.89 days. This finding is
not particularly surprising because the most serious cases were selected for case management.
Consequently, they were unlikely to be a fair comparison group because they were less “at-risk”
than the treatment students.
Interestingly, there were no significant differences in the second semester between
comparison students and treatment students. Comparison students missed an average of 2.14
days per week during the Spring 2005 semester and treatment students missed an average of 2.54
days per week. Thus, although treatment students had more absences than the comparison
group, the difference is not significant, which means it could be a result of chance.
There are a number of ways to explain these results. The obvious interpretation is that
case management was not effective because student attendance worsened – 2.54 days per week
missed in the Spring compared to 1.89 days in the Fall). However, this may be too simplistic.
Statistically, the lack of a difference in the Spring semester between the comparison and
Evaluation of the Gulfton Truancy Reduction Demonstration Project 15