460 - COVID-19 and High School Attendance: Modeling Latent Trajectories and the Influence of School Policies and Practices

Poster Number: 460
Publication Number: 460.8

Background: School attendance is critical for educational success, youth development, and child and adult health. However, rates of chronic school absenteeism have drastically increased, signaling an ongoing crisis of health and education in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding unique attendance patterns within this population-level change may inform intervention.

Objective: Identify distinct attendance trajectories among youth enrolled in 5 high schools in Los Angeles at the onset of COVID-19 and estimate the influence of school practices.

Design/Methods: We analyzed school administrative data from the 2016-17 to 2020-21 school years for 2 cohorts (7th or 8th grade at baseline) of rising high school students (N=2850; Table 1). We used group-based trajectory models to identify latent groups of students with distinct attendance trajectories, visualize trajectories, and estimate group proportions. We estimated the effect of suspension and participation in a college readiness program on attendance by including these as time-varying covariates in separate models. We used Wald tests to assess between-group differences.

Results: We identified three attendance trajectory groups (Figure 1/Table 2). A stable high attendance group (N=2250) displayed constant high attendance throughout. An acutely declining attendance group (N=455) displayed initial high attendance with modest decline prior to COVID-19 related school closures and more rapid decline after this time. A chronically declining attendance group (N=145) displayed continual decline in attendance throughout. Suspension was associated with decreasing attendance across all groups, without significant differences between groups (χ2=1.57; p=0.46). Participation in a college readiness program was associated with a small decrease in attendance in the stable high attendance group and a larger increase in attendance in the acutely declining attendance group. Associations were significantly different between groups (χ2=8.77; p=0.013).

Conclusion(s): Although many youth had minimal lasting effects of COVID-19 on their attendance, others had more severely declining attendance than expected throughout the high school years. Suspension negatively impacted every group, while college readiness programming uniquely benefited those experiencing the most acute impacts of COVID-19 on their attendance. Monitoring attendance trajectories, providing individualized intervention, and advocating for supportive school-level policies and practices are important pathways to foster youth connectedness, enhance educational outcomes, and support all youth to be healthy and thriving.