Gulfton Truancy Reduction Demonstration Project, Houston, TX

2) Moderate: Success is defined as having two or fewer unexcused absences at exit and
improving average grades by at least half a letter, e.g. from D- to D.
3) Inclusive: Success is defined as making good improvement in attendance, regardless of
the absolute number of absences at exit, and improving grades by at least half a letter.
Outcome data are obtained from the TRAIN database. Attendance data were available
for all 43 students, but letter grades at intake and at least one update were available for only 32 of
them. Of these 32, only one student met the “rigorous” definition of success, three students met
the “moderate” definition, and five met the “inclusive” definition 13 . However, since all students
were exited from the database at the end of the school year, it is impossible to know which
students continued to receive case management during the following year. For this reason,
success was difficult to determine, and some students may have been prematurely classified as
successful or not successful.
Savings Under the Most Inclusive Definition of Case Management Success
If all five students who meet the inclusive definition of success eventually graduate from
high school, the case management success rate would be 5/32 or 15.63%. When this rate is
applied to all 43 students who received case management services, total savings may be
expressed as follows:
($188,377 x 43 x .1563) - $47,511 = $1,218,552.
Under this scenario, the return to each dollar invested in the program (1,218,552 ÷ 47,511)
would equal almost $26 – a high return for a social service program – and the total saved in one
year alone would be more than $1.2 million.
13 Although six students met the criteria for the inclusive definition of success, one of them, a 17-year-old 9th grader, was exited
from case management due to withdrawal from school. Therefore, only five students are counted as successful according to this
definition.
Evaluation of the Gulfton Truancy Reduction Demonstration Project 25