Inside a locked room at Colleyville Middle School that staff members use for professional development, a 鈥渄ata wall鈥� offers a glimpse of each of the school鈥檚 600-plus students.
It lists each student鈥檚 name and academic data points dating back to 3rd grade. It includes attendance information. And next to each name appear the initials of staff members who have a substantive connection with that student鈥攑erhaps a mentoring relationship, a tendency to check in with each other at lunchtime, or a common interest over which they鈥檝e bonded.
When there鈥檚 a student name without initials by it, it鈥檚 a sign that someone needs to try to make a connection.
鈥淲e pinpoint those students, and our teachers and educators, staff members, they go out of their way to try to build those connections to create that mentorship aspect with them,鈥� said David Arencibia, the principal of the Colleyville, Texas, school.
The strategy, a variation on an exercise called relationship mapping, is one that schools have turned to increasingly in recent years. The goal is to strengthen students鈥� ties to school that weakened from the isolation of pandemic school closures and haven鈥檛 bounced back. That disconnection has manifested itself perhaps most visibly in elevated chronic absenteeism.
A body of research that predates the pandemic shows that when students feel connected to school, they鈥檙e more likely to attend and perform well academically. They鈥檙e less likely to misbehave and feel sad and hopeless. Some research has even linked health benefits well into adulthood to a strong sense of connection to school.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the closest we have to a universal prevention measure for everything,鈥� said Robert Balfanz, the director of the Everyone Graduates Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, who has worked with schools on connectedness strategies through an initiative called the GRAD Partnership. 鈥淎nd it makes sense, because if you feel connected to someplace, you鈥檙e less likely to be off and sort of disengaged on your own.鈥�
Students鈥� ties to school revolve around the relationships they have with adults in the building and their peers鈥攚hether they think others genuinely care about them and welcome them for who they are鈥攁s well as opportunities to participate in activities they find meaningful.
Building off those elements, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mentoring, service learning, student-led clubs, and classroom-management training for teachers as strategies schools can use to build connectedness, reducing unhealthy behaviors and strengthening students鈥� engagement.
Many students don鈥檛 feel connected to their school
There鈥檚 no precise measure for how connected students feel to their school, but there鈥檚 evidence that many of the nation鈥檚 students don鈥檛 feel they have a meaningful bond.
In 2021, 61.5 percent of high school students taking the CDC鈥檚 biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey felt close to people at school, meaning nearly 40 percent of students didn鈥檛. Girls, students from most racial minorities, and LGBTQ+ students were less likely than others to say they felt connected. And the closer they were to the end of high school, students became less likely to say they felt close to others at school.
On the other hand, in a March EdWeek Research Center survey of 1,056 high school-age youth, 86 percent at least partly agreed that they felt accepted and welcomed in their school community. Nearly as many students, 81 percent, said the adults in their school care at least somewhat about their well-being and success as people.
It鈥檚 clear why students would be drawn to a place where they feel strong connections, Balfanz said.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a place where they want you there, and there鈥檚 someone who knows you, and there鈥檚 a group of peers that are going to miss you if you鈥檙e not there, you鈥檙e going to do something meaningful, and you feel welcome,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 actually a place you would fight to get to as opposed to finding a reason not to go.鈥�
Check-ins, curriculum audits, and clubs: Schools work on belonging
Trying to reverse sagging attendance, the Tacoma, Wash., school district over the past two years has deployed a range of initiatives that aim to foster a sense of belonging among students at greater risk of becoming chronically absent.
They include community-based mentors who come into schools for regular check-ins with students and affinity clubs aimed at Indigenous and LGBTQ+ students, who鈥攄istrict data show鈥攁re more likely to have irregular attendance.
One initiative is called the 鈥淲alking School Bus.鈥� It provides younger students with a safe way to get to school with a group of peers who are led along an established walking route by high school students or educators. The high school student route leaders get a paid internship and course credit.
It was a response to survey feedback from parents who said their kids didn鈥檛 have a safe way to get to school, presenting a barrier to attendance, said Jimmy Gere, Tacoma鈥檚 attendance and engagement counselor.
Younger students build relationships with each other and with high school students, and high school students gain a service-learning opportunity鈥攐ne of the CDC鈥檚 identified strategies for building school connectedness.
鈥淭here鈥檚 an element of mentorship because elementary kids love high school kids,鈥� Gere said.
In Albuquerque, N.M., Manzano High School built connectedness into its early-warning system, so staff could more readily notice when a student is falling behind.
In the last couple of years, the school鈥檚 weekly, 30-minute advisory periods have become a time when school staff check in with their advisees and deliberately review their grades, attendance, and behavior over the prior week. If a student is struggling, the adviser refers them to one of the school鈥檚 student-success teams, which then works with the student to identify the root cause of their challenges and solutions.
Last spring, Manzano staff interviewed students who had been referred to a student-success team, and they said regular check-ins with their advisers had been the most important part of keeping them on track.
鈥淪tudents were saying, 鈥榃e do better when we have people doing those one-on-one check-ins,鈥欌�� Principal Rachel Vigil said. 鈥淛ust, 鈥楬ey, how are you doing?鈥� It doesn鈥檛 even have to be academic.鈥�
When the Arlington Central school district in New York surveyed students after their return to campus from pandemic closures, staff discovered that older students, students of color, and students in special education felt a weaker sense of belonging.
In follow-up focus groups, less connected students said they felt as if they had no way to connect to the school community if they weren鈥檛 an athlete or musician. So the high school started holding activity fairs to proactively bring information about extracurricular activities to students, and administrators solicited student ideas on new clubs, said Daisy Rodriguez, Arlington鈥檚 assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
鈥淲e know that when kids feel like they belong in school, they have better attendance, they have better academic achievement, and just greater social-emotional support,鈥� she said.
In the district鈥檚 middle schools, Arlington last year established regular advisory periods set aside for check-ins and social-emotional learning. Groups of students are assigned to the same adviser throughout the three years of middle school. The district ultimately hopes to bring similar advisory periods to its high school.
And through curriculum audits, the district has tried to respond to student feedback that the books they read in class weren鈥檛 relevant by swapping in more current selections.
At Thomas Kelly College Preparatory in Chicago, survey feedback was also critical to efforts to ensure 9th graders felt a connection to the 1,700-student high school.
Through a survey called that the school now administers quarterly, students largely said they didn鈥檛 feel as if teachers cared about them, they thought classes were boring, and they didn鈥檛 think what they were learning was relevant, Principal Raul Magdaleno said.
So a newly established, five-member freshman success team held an event before the end of the school year last year where each of the school鈥檚 500 9th graders could sit down one-on-one with an adult for five to 10 minutes and discuss how the school year had gone, ask questions about sophomore year, review attendance and grades, set goals for the remainder of the year, and talk about clubs they could join.
When the 2023-24 year started, that team also made sure an adult鈥攃ollege mentors working with a local community group as well as school staff鈥攚ould regularly meet with students flagged as high risk in the Chicago schools鈥� early-warning system.
In classrooms, Kelly has made 2023-24 the year of 鈥渕eaningful work,鈥� with teachers rethinking their instruction to make it more 鈥渃ulturally relevant and rigorous,鈥� Magdaleno said.
鈥淚t鈥檚 definitely still a work in progress,鈥� said Grace Gunderson, a school counselor at Kelly who leads the freshman success team. 鈥淏ut I think the students understand now that we want their feedback, we genuinely want to know what they think, and they feel as if their opinions are valued.鈥�
[Read more about how these schools and districts incorporate connectedness.]
A connection to school has academic and health benefits
Researchers have linked a range of benefits to strong student connections to school.
Students who said in the 2021 CDC survey that they felt close to others at school, for example, to report poor mental health, missing school because they felt unsafe, and risky behaviors such as drug use.
The health benefits have even proved long-lasting.
CDC researchers tracked more than 14,000 middle and high school students over 20 years and, in a 2019 study, found that those who reported feeling connected to school as adolescents were half as likely as adults鈥攐r even less likely鈥攖o have used illegal drugs or misused prescription drugs, been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease, experienced emotional distress and thoughts of suicide, or been the victim of physical violence.
There鈥檚 also to strong student-teacher relationships that鈥檚 emerged in multiple studies: better grades and attendance, fewer disruptive behaviors and suspensions, and lower dropout rates.
Dozens of high schools have made such relationships central to their improvement efforts as part of the BARR (Building Assets, Reducing Risks) model, through which teams of teachers are assigned to designated groups of students so they can form strong bonds and quickly notice when a student might need extra support. have highlighted the dividends: reduced 9th grade course failures and lower chronic absenteeism, as well as improved teacher collaboration.
Back at Colleyville Middle School near Dallas, staff members have worked throughout the school year to forge a connection with every student. Shortly after the end of the first semester, just a handful of students remained who didn鈥檛 have initials by their name on the data wall, said Arencibia, the principal.
Using color codes, the data wall shows when a student might need some extra attention from the adult whose initials appear by their name. And if counselors and administrators notice a student鈥檚 attendance is slipping or they鈥檝e had behavior problems, they often ask the adult mentor for more information or for help, Arencibia said.
鈥淜ids are no different than adults. They鈥檙e no different than any human being,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hen a human is connected to other individuals or a location鈥攐r if they鈥檙e connected to a sport, a band, a certain class鈥攖hey feel included and they feel seen, they feel heard, and they feel a part of what鈥檚 going on.鈥�
