1. Research Brief
March 11th
, 2016
David Vong
VFA’s program impact on attendance at the Seattle World School
Background
The growing achievement and opportunity gap
as well as the school to prison pipeline are
trends currently plaguing the public education
system in the United States. Students at the
Seattle World School (SWS) in the Seattle
Public School District are among the most
vulnerable populations to the detrimental effects
of these trends, and according to numerous
studies, are at a high risk of academic failure or
dropping out.
100% of the SWS student body are recent
immigrants or refugees, and 97% are eligible
for free or reduced lunch. In addition, a number
are counted as Students with Interrupted
Formal education (SIFE), meaning they have
gaps in their education caused by resettlement.
A Seattle-based nonprofit titled The Vietnamese
Friendship Association (VFA) partners with a
number of community organizations to provide
a wide range of afterschool programs as well as
Saturday school for students at the SWS. This
support aligns with VFAs mission to enhance
educational opportunities for underserved
communities.
School Attendance
School attendance is shown to be a major
indicator of academic success. While many
schools are required to track unexcused
absences, recent studies suggest major
importance in tracking chronic absences, which
account for both unexcused and excused
absences.
Afterschool and Saturday programs have the
ability to positively impact school attendance. It
is crucial to track both excused absences as
well as unexcused absences in order to assess
the impact that VFA programs have on students
at the SWS. This study aims to examine the
impact that VFA programs have on attendance
rates at the SWS.
Sample
The study uses attendance data collected from
Academic Data Warehouse for all 257 students
enrolled in the 2015 school year. The data was
extracted from the span of September 17, 2015
to December 16, 2015. The intervention group
of regularly attending VFA students had a
minimum of 50% attendance rates within a VFA
program. The control group of non-regularly
attending VFA students had less than 50%
attendance rates within the program, or they
were not enrolled in VFA programs at all. Of the
257 students enrolled at the SWS, 65 students
were in the intervention group and 192 were in
the control group.

2. Results
The findings of the two separate independent
sample t-test analyses indicate statistically
significant differences between the independent
and control groups. The mean unexcused
attendance rate for regularly attending VFA
students was (96.3%) versus (93.2%) for non-
VFA students. The mean for general
attendance rate for regularly attending VFA
students was (94.5%) versus (90.5%) for non-
VFA students.
In the two separate t-test conducted, the
hypothesis test indicated a p-value of .019 for
the unexcused attendance rate and a p-value of
.008 for the general attendance hypothesis test.
Conclusion
This study provides a start in exploring the
impact that VFA programs have on school
attendance. The data demonstrates that on
average, students who regularly attend VFA
programs will have a statically significant higher
school attendance. The study used VFA’s
definition of a “regularly attending student”,
meaning students who have a minimum of 50%
attendance rate within the VFA program. There
may have been limitations in what constituted a
regularly attending student in the intervention
group. Some students who do well
academically could have limited attendance in
the program due to part time jobs or other
obligations. Further studies should be
conducted in this vein in order to develop
programs that will adequately support students.
Additional research recommendations include
gauging the optimal criteria of the intervention
group and analyzing the causes of chronic
absences. A long-term follow up and evaluation
of school attendance for both groups of
students of the study could help with program
development and gauge effectiveness of
programming.
90.5%
93.2%
94.5%
96.3%
86.0% 88.0% 90.0% 92.0% 94.0% 96.0% 98.0%
general attendance rate
unexcused attendance rate
Mean attendance rate at the Seattle
World School
VFA Non-VFA
Figure 1. Mean attendance rates for VFA and Non-VFA students
Figure 2. Scatterplot for attendance distribution of SWS students