School environmental conditions and links to academic performance and absenteeism in urban, mid-Atlantic public schools

Abstract

School facility conditions, environment, and perceptions of safety and learning have been investigated for their impact on child development. However, it is important to consider how the environment separately influences academic performance and attendance after controlling for school and community factors. Using results from the Maryland School Assessment, we considered outcomes of school-level proficiency in reading and math plus attendance and chronic absences, defined as missing 20 or more days, for grades 3-5 and 6-8 at 158 urban schools. Characteristics of the environment included school facility conditions, density of nearby roads, and an index industrial air pollution. Perceptions of school safety, learning, and institutional environment were acquired from a School Climate Survey. Also considered were neighborhood factors at the community statistical area, including demographics, crime, and poverty based on school location. Poisson regression adjusted for over-dispersion was used to model academic achievement and multiple linear models were used for attendance. Each 10-unit change in facility condition index, denoting worse quality buildings, was associated with a decrease in reading (1.0% (95% CI: 0.1-1.9%) and math scores (0.21% (95% CI: 0.20-0.40), while chronic absences increased by 0.75% (95% CI: 0.30-1.39). Each log increase the EPA's Risk Screening Environmental Indicator (RSEI) value for industrial hazards, resulted in a marginally significant trend of increasing absenteeism (p < 0.06), but no association was observed with academic achievement. All results were robust to school-level measures of racial composition, free and reduced meals eligibility, and community poverty and crime. These findings provide empirical evidence for the importance of the community and school environment, including building conditions and neighborhood toxic substance risk, on academic achievement and attendance.

The Importance of School Pedagogical and Social Climate to Students’ Unauthorized Absenteeism – a Multilevel Study of 101 Swedish Schools

“…Previous research on school climate and student absenteeism (both authorized and unauthorized) demonstrated an inverse association, i.e., more positive climate was associated to lower absenteeism (Berman et al, 2018;Brookmeyer et al, 2006;Hendron & Kearney, 2016;Van Eck et al, 2017;Virtanen et al, 2009). These studies have focused particularly on the social environment of schools, including peer relations and teacher-student relations, perceptions of safety and school as physical environment (Berman et al, 2018;Demir & Akman Karabeyoglu, 2015;Hendron & Kearney, 2016;Ramberg et al, 2019;Virtanen et al, 2009). A factor that stands out as important in all these studies, is the quality of relationships between teachers and students.…”

“…Unauthorized absence encompasses more than 25% of school days during a period of two weeks or 10 days; or 15% during a period of 15 weeks of a school year (Havik et al, 2015;Kearney, 2008;Skedgell & Kearney, 2018;Thornton et al, 2013). However, different cut-off points for problematic unauthorized absence have been presented, ranging from >3 days during a past month (Virtanen et al, 2009) to >20 days in the past 90 days, also denoted as chronic absenteeism (Balfanz & Byrnes, 2012;Berman et al, 2018;Thornton et al, 2013;Van Eck et al, 2017). When the association between unauthorized absence and standardized performance test results has been studied, even small amounts of unauthorized absence have been found to be associated with lower test results (Hancock et al, 2017).…”

The School Climate and Academic Mindset Inventory (SCAMI): Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Invariance Across Demographic Groups

“…Several of the SCAMI school climate subscales can be broadly grouped into relational (parent involvement and support, respect for diversity, perceptions of school performance) and safety (physical safety, bullying) domains. Condition of school facilities, another common element of school climate assessment, is represented as well (Berman et al, 2018). A key advantage of the SCAMI is the presence of multiple items for each of these specific domains.…”

Corequisite Courses for Developmental Students at a Large Research University

“…In fact, 67% of developmental students entering in the Fall 2016 cohort came from families with incomes less than $60,000 compared to the population of UT Austin at large, for which only 27% come from families with incomes less than $60,000. As documented in several places, students who come from lower-income families are more likely to struggle academically (Berman et al, 2018;Berliner 2006;Jensen, 2013).…”