Does a targeted rewards based intervention reduce ... · REWARDS BASED INTERVENTION TO REDUCE...

Running Head: REWARDS BASED INTERVENTION TO REDUCE ABENTEEISM AND TARDINESS 1

Does a targeted rewards based intervention reduce tardiness and absenteeism in elementary students with

high rates of tardiness and absenteeism?

Laurie Gottschalk

Portland State University

REWARDS BASED INTERVENTION TO REDUCE ABENTEEISM AND TARDINESS 2

Abstract

This action research project will look at tardiness trends at Metzger Elementary School in the

Tigard/Tualatin School District. Student attendance in schools is not only students being at

school but also being in their seat at the appropriate times. Early interventions to promote

punctual behavior can ripple throughout many domains within a student’s life. Attendance and

tardiness rates have been studied and shown to possibly link to high school graduation rates.

Targeting and modifying student’s tardiness and absenteeism behaviors could create a

foundation for future positive educational habits. The goal of this project is to modify elementary

student’s behavior around tardiness and absenteeism by delivering a targeted reward based

intervention. The “Sunshine Club” was created at Metzger where each student was tracked for

their daily attendance habits and rewarded for decreasing their tardiness and absenteeism.

Students were identified for the intervention based on the qualification of having three or more

absences or tardies after January 6th

, 2014 and before February, 14th

2014. After selected students

had their own tracking sheet which they placed a sticker on for each day they were present and

on time for school. If students attended 90% or more of the time then they were invited to a club

celebration where they got a small treat. Overall absences decreased from an average of 8.7 to an

average of 1.38. Students who are on time and ready to learn are typically more successful on

tests, have better peer relationships, and have a greater connection to the school. Working on

early interventions for students to improve their behavior around school attendance sets them up

for future behaviors that are necessary for college and employment.


Table of Contents

Introduction ....................................................................................................................................4

Literature Review ..........................................................................................................................5

Procedures ....................................................................................................................................12

Selection .....................................................................................................................................12

Rationale ....................................................................................................................................13

Findings .........................................................................................................................................14

Discussion ..................................................................................................................................15

Future Implications ....................................................................................................................16

Strengths ....................................................................................................................................17

Limitations .................................................................................................................................18

Future Studies ............................................................................................................................19

Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................20

Appendix A ...................................................................................................................................21

Appendix B ...................................................................................................................................22

Appendix C ...................................................................................................................................23

Bibliography .................................................................................................................................24


Introduction

The purpose of this action research study is to review tardiness trends at Metzger

Elementary School in the Tigard-Tualatin School District. Student attendance in schools is not

only students being physically at school but also being in their seat at the appropriate time. Early

interventions to promote punctual behavior can ripple throughout many domains within a

student’s life and create a strong foundation that will prepare them for the future. Metzger

Elementary students, staff, and parents all see the value of every instructional minute of the day.

One of their continuous school improvement plan goals is to reduce the number of tardiness or

absences by the top 25 most tardy or absent students by 25%. The school’s curriculum and

instruction focus of the year is active engagement and rigor, which means that student’s are fully

engaged in the learning process throughout the entire school day.

The goal of this project is to modify elementary student’s behavior around tardiness and

absenteeism by delivering a targeted reward based intervention. Each student will be tracked for

their daily attendance habits and rewarded for decreasing their tardiness and absenteeism within

a specified amount of time. I am trying to answer the question: Does a targeted rewards based

intervention reduce tardiness or absenteeism in elementary aged children with high rates of

tardiness or absenteeism?

For the purpose of this study and report absenteeism is known as a general term for a

student not being present at school, either excused or not excused. Tardiness is defined as

arriving anytime after 8:25am. The terms incentive, reward, and reinforcement are

interchangeable and all refer to the item that we offered the students to change their behavior.


This study is significant due to the fact that being on time and ready is a highly valued

life skill. It is applicable to American School Counseling Association’s (ASCA) three domains of

development: career, personal/social, and academic. Not only is it important to teach students to

be on time it another branch of self advocacy to enlist only the student in this research study.

Since this study did not include an intervention with parents, students needed to self advocate

and self monitor in order to earn their reward. These types of skills are invaluable to the

development of the self at any developmental age.

Literature Review

This literature review will be separated into three parts. The first will focus on the

definitions of absenteeism, risk factors and importance of being in school, as well as the role of

the school counselor in tardiness and absenteeism. The second will look at the achievement

factors and impact of chronic absenteeism and tardiness on academic outcomes. The final section

is a review of interventions previously conducted in schools.

Let us first start with how we look at absenteeism in our school systems. Pellegrini

(2007) puts absenteeism into perspective for us, working to decrease the stigma around the

already existing labels of students who chronically miss school. He analyzes the two labels, one

being called “school refusal” and the other “school phobia”. The idea is to make sure that when

we label a student that the labels we are using are not creating even more barriers to a student’s

behavior. School phobia is a term used to define the behavior of not attending school, often

associated with a psychopathology of anxiety or phobic disorders (Pellegrini, 2007). Pellegrini

cited that Kearney & Silverman (1999) referred to a lack of motivation to attend school and

encapsulated any other reason non-pathological on the spectrum of non-attendance. “Chronic


Absenteeism” is another term widely used and is defined as 10% or more of the school year or in

the previous year missing a month or more (Balfanz and Byrnes, 2012). Even this term is implied

with a term typically associated in the medical field, thus implying that it is somewhat of an

internal diagnosis without the implication of the external factors. While it is important that we

accept that there is a differentiation needed for the reasons students do not attend school these

definitions neglect the systematic reasons a student may not attend school. Pellegrini proposes

we use the term “extended school non-attendance” to define the behavior (Pellegrini, 2007). This

term is neutral and void of medical and psychopathological implications as well as leaving the

door open to address the school environment in conjunction with the persistent behavior

(Pellegrini, 2007).

The largest risk factor of having extended school non-attendance is that the ultimate

conclusion of dropping out. Students who drop out of school have historically lower paying jobs

and higher rates of unemployment (Kelly and White, 2010). Students who miss academic chunks

of their education due to non-attendance are not as academically successful as their peers; they

perform poorly on state tests and get low grades. This system is a mutually reinforcing system

for non-attendance (D.Couillard, J. Garnett, A Hutchins, M.L. Fawcett, and G Macock, 2006).

Students who do not feel successful at school find that their time may be used completing other

activities that they are successful at and elect to complete those instead. It has been found that the

effects of non-attendance in kindergarten is associated with lower academic performance in the

first grade (Balfanz and Byrnes, 2012)

The profession of School Counseling has been dedicated to working to close the

achievement gap, which non-attendance is a large part of. School Counselors are in a unique

position to support the academic success of students as it relates to their social/emotional lives.


White and Kelly suggest that School Counselor already plays a role in preventative factors in the

prevention of school dropout (Kelly and White, 2010). School Counselors are linked to social

support, monitoring and mentoring, personal and social skill development, and parent

involvement (Kelly and White, 2010). A student’s ability to function in their academic world

relies on a vast amount of factors beyond their comprehension of the subject. An extenuating

factor is their mental health status, which counselors are in a unique position to connect a student

and their family to resources that could assist the family if necessary (D.Couillard, J. Garnett, A

Hutchins, M.L. Fawcett, and G Macock, 2006). Attendance interventions are found to be more

successful when they are part of a comprehensive approach; this includes outreach to families

who have more challenging barriers to attendance (Balfanz and Byrnes, 2012). The School

Counselor has the ability to touch many of these areas that research suggests promotes change in

non-attendance, there for the School Counselor could sit in a leadership role when it comes to

engaging families who have students who are extended school non-attendees.

Extended school non attendance comes with risk factors, this is evident. If a child is not

in their seat to learn, then they do not learn; this logic is infallible. With the common evaluation

model for education being the standardized test we rely on our public educators to prepare

students for these tests. If a child is not in class to hear the instructions, particularly in math, then

it is possible that said student could perform more poorly than their peers on the same test. This

next sections attempts to not only look at individual students but to look at various groups of

students to see how absenteeism and tardiness have affected their achievement levels. Michael

Gottfried has done significant research in this field and contributed much to the body of

knowledge around the effects of absenteeism and tardiness.


Gottfried (2007) took looking at how absenteeism effects student testing outcomes a step

further and disseminated the data based on what type of absence the student had: excused versus

unexcused in elementary aged children. What he found was that students who had unexcused

absences were performing more poorly on their tests than that of their peers. Gottfried (2007)

also found that those who had a higher proportion of excused absences actually performed better

on standard tests or had very insignificant difference in loss on test scores as compared to their

peers. The limitation to this is that students who have extreme amounts of absences whether

excused or unexcused perform more poorly on standardized tests than their peers (Gottfried,

2007).

When looking at individual absences and considering if they are excused or unexcused

school officials make conclusions as to why a student may or may not be missing school.

Excused absences could be attributed to positive family relationships while unexcused negative.

It is possible that children who are unexcused live in a family where the electricity may have

been shut off or the phone bill unpaid. All of these familial circumstances could be investigated

by the school to best support the families. An interesting group of students to study is those in

foster care or those within the welfare system. Two predictors of drop out are absenteeism and

school stability (Zorc, O’Riely, Matone, Long, Watts, Ruin, 2013). This particular variable is a

very challenging one for those in the foster care system. Students who are placed and

transitioned between multiple placements face more challenges than their peers and are at a

greater risk for absenteeism than their peers. In the study conducted of foster children the

average number of days absent per year was 25, 13% of these absences were due to non-

enrollment. The average number of schools attended was 2.7 in two years (Zorc, O’Riely,

Matone, Long, Watts, Ruin, 2013). Foster children experience many transitions in their lives; it


is difficult to not only move to a new home but also to a new school and to not be at that school

for a full year. The statistics given above are on the right side of the bell curve, those foster

placement children who had what was termed “stable placements.” Students who had unstable

placements were found to attend 3.6 schools in the same two year period as their peers. Even

more shocking is the fact that students who were reunified to their home had far worse statistics

than those of their foster care peers, 70% were more likely to be absent than their stable

placement foster care peers (Zorc, O’Riely, Matone, Long, Watts, Ruin, 2013). With what we

know from Gottfried (2007) about excused versus unexcused absences we can only begin to

predict the academic impact that this has on these students.

Expanding further on our view of achievement for out extended school non-attenders is a

study conducted by Gottfried (2011) on the effects of absenteeism in siblings. This research was

done over 6 years on siblings in the Philadelphia School District. What Gottfried was aiming to

do was to look at sibling’s performance levels in standardized tests who experience high levels

of absenteeism and look at this behavior and school performance levels over time. What

Gottfried did find was that the absences experiences by the subjects did have a negative effect on

standardized test outcomes, more so in math than in reading and that the outcomes continue to

deteriorate over time (Gottfried, 2011). This study is important to the current research because it

was the first to look at the effects of siblings over time in elementary school. To see that the

effects are similar on pairs of siblings that experience similar familial variables contributes to the

larger body of research that absenteeism alone does have an effect on academic performance.

Student who are absent or tardy not only affect their own performance but it has also

been implied that it affects their peer’s performance. There is suspicion that there are negative

classroom and behavioral outcomes from students who are chronically tardy. A student who is


tardy or absent is missing more instructional time than their peers and thus may require the

attention of the teacher to get them back on track or adjust them into the current events of the

classroom. Gottfried (2012) found that students individual tarides have a negative effect on their

own test scores, more astounding is the fact that students who are in classrooms where more of

their peers are tardy and hold consistent levels of tardiness also have lower performance on test

scores classroom wide. This fact is particularly alarming for the school systems in the case that

not only can we see that the individual suffer and that we need to intervene there, but we also

now can see that a whole class may be negatively affected by multiple individuals tardiness

behavior and there for call for an even stronger need for an intervention.

The literature on interventions to keep students in school dictates a vast amount of

strategies to keep students in school and engaged to learn. When considering how to intervene

with students it is suggested that there be levels of intervention like a tier model (Bynum,

McCluskey, Pathclin, 2004), other tier models are Response to Intervention model (Graczyk &

Karney, 2013), a Positive Behavior Supports Model (Haydon & Musti-Rao, 2011; Caldarella,

Christensen, Denley, Young, 2011).

The tier model is designed to group behaviors according to their severity and intervention

level. As severity increases so does the monitoring and the intervention. It is recommended that

schools implement school wide supports to address school climate and behavior. This would be a

Tier 1 intervention, school climate should be welcoming and address bullying, teacher and peer

support, and have consistent rules (Graczyk & Karney, 2013). School based health centers and

programs can increase attendance by addressing personal health concerns and provide students

with care they may not be able to receive in other places (Graczyk & Karney, 2013). According

to the National Dropout Prevention Center/Network schools are communities that do not exist in


isolation, their first tier of intervention involved systematic renewal, school-community

collaboration and safe learning environments; which require looking at the schools objectives

and policies and adjusting them to fit the diverse population they serve (Riemer and Smink,

2005). It is also recommended that looking at family engagement, early childhood education, and

early literacy development can be most effective when implemented early as to prevent drop out

(Riemer & Smink, 2005).

As we get into the second tier there are more needs to address the concerns of extended

school non-attendance. It is common for schools to send out letter to those students who missed

20% or more of the school year were sent a letter home noting the federal law about school

attendance and the amount of days the student had missed (Caldarella, Christensen, Denley,

Young, 2011; Bynum, McCluskey, Patchin, 2004). These interventions returned a decrease in

tardiness and absenteeism. At the second level we can start expanding interventions to outside of

the school. Is there are reason the student is late that is due to home life or psychological

concerns? Increasing student engagement and peer mentors, after school opportunities, and

alternative schooling can work to connect to students and give school additional meaning; the

hope is that this changes behaviors around absenteeism and tardiness (Graczyk & Karney, 2013;

Riemer & Smink, 2005).

It has been found that teachers can play a large role in the tier two interventions.

Research on teachers using written praise notes for students who attend class on time decreased

rates of tardiness and absenteeism (Caldarella, Christensen, Denley, Young, 2011; Bynum,

McCluskey, Patchin, 2004). Teacher praise statements can increase the positive behavior of a

student through praise (Haydon & Musti-Rao, 2011). While there is recognition that teachers

have such a case load and interventions that do not take a lot of time and are simple to use are


preferred, teachers self monitoring their levels of praise could have a dramatic effect on their

behaviors in their classroom (Haydon & Musti-Rao, 2011). In a study conducted in Virginia

published in 1977 students had their own charts in their classroom where they put stars on their

attendance charts and the amount of time they were present directly correlated to the amount of

time they got to spend at a month end party. School officials saw an increase over previous years

of attendance by a full percentage (Barber & Kagery, 1977). This represented a very simple

intervention that was done in the classroom and yielded positive school wide results.

More intense interventions involve truancy officers visiting the home of students who

continue to not attend school, officers made contact with parents and had them sign a form

acknowledging their students absence behaviors (Bynum, McCluskey, Patchin, 2004). Legal

strategies tend to be the last resort for schools as they have used the resources they have

internally to address the concern of attendance. Even more alternative placements could be

considered for students and very extensive monitoring would be required at this point (Graczyk

& Karney, 2013). While we rarely want to reach the third tier of intervention in a school, it is a

common occurrence.

What we know is that missing school affects student outcomes. Achievement gaps widen

for those students who are extended school non-attending than those of their peers that do attend

school. A decline in test scores, feelings of disconnection to the school and their peers, and

increased absenteeism result from not addressing concerns around attendance behavior. The

research presented shows support for school wide initiatives as well individual support plans and

investigation to mitigate the reasons for extended school non-attendance. Particular attention

should be paid to how we view attendance and instigate the help of the community to address

these concerns. Conceptualization of the behavior can be particularly sensitive for the persons


involved and it is important to understand and be empathetic about how we present our concerns

for the behavior of an individual. Non-attendance not only affects the student but becomes a

school wide climate concern and is thus an ideal issue for the counselor to address.

Procedures

Selection

Most students were selected for this research based on their absenteeism and tardiness

reports from January 6th

, 2014 through February 14th

, 2014. Those students who had the highest

levels of absenteeism and tardiness were selected, there were a couple of subjects selected based

on previous attendance history during the 2013-2014 school year. Students were personally

notified that they would be a part of a group called “The Sunshine Club.” Students were told that

they would be a part of a brand new club and if they wanted to go to the club celebration all they

needed to do was be on time to school. Two parents were stationed at the front of the school with

the students individual tracking sheets so that they could put a sticker on their sheet for each day

that they were on time. Reports from the student information system were pulled weekly to track

progress and students were reminded that they had an incentive they were working towards. At

the end of the designated time the students were invited to their celebration, which was a hot

chocolate party, and told that they were still in the club and would need to check in for the next

month.

Rationale

The rational for this research protocol was based on previous intervention success. The

School Counselor on site had run a program similar to this previously and found it very

successful. There was also careful thought as to which students would be inappropriate for the


study pertaining to extenuating circumstances involving parents and home life. This study was

specifically designed to intervene with a single stakeholder: the student, with the idea that self

motivation would be enough to promote change without the assistance of another stakeholder.

This allows us to discriminate between variables easily. If rates of absenteeism and tardiness

improved it would be a direct reflection of the student’s behavior not another variable.

This action research study was conducted on the premises of Metzger Elementary School with

the assistance of two parent volunteers for check in, teachers of the students, the school

counselor, and the school counseling intern. Data was collected solely through Synergy, which is

the student information system used in the Tigard-Tualatin School District.

In summary, we wanted to positively reinforce the behavior of absenteeism and tardiness.

By keeping the students in a club it avoided a social stigma around their behavior of concern and

provided them with an achievable goal that was obtained through self motivation and advocacy.

The reward was developmentally appropriate and desirable enough to promote change.

Findings

The data for this intervention was collected on each of the students pre-intervention,

during intervention, and post-intervention. While there were two separate reinforcements given,

data was accumulated during that time since it was all within the time span of the same

intervention. The sample size is n=25. Figure 1 shows the results for each individual student.


Figure 1

The percentage of school missed was determined by adding the number of days absent

and tardy and dividing them by the total number of days possible to be present and on time. The

total amount of days possible to be present and on time pre-intervention was 29. During the

intervention the total number of days to be present and on time was 28. Table 1 shows the

average difference between pre and post intervention, the average number of absences was 8.7

and decreased to 1.38 after the intervention. 21 out of 25 students decreased the amount of

absences or tardys they had by more than 50% during the intervention. Of all 25 students only

one student showed a gain in absences and tardys. This particular student was selected based on

his attendance prior to January 6th

, however despite showing improved attendance in the New

Year we elected to keep him in the study. This resulted in his behavior reverting back to the

previous tendencies of missing school or being tardy and he showed gains in his percentage of

absenteeism and tardiness for the intervention.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

K K 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 2nd 2nd 2nd 2nd 2nd 2nd 3rd 3rd 3rd 3rd 3rd 4th 4th

Missed School % Pre 20% 31% 17% 20% 27% 51% 31% 27% 6% 31% 17% 13% 27% 27% 68% 31% 20% 31% 58% 34% 27% 24% 41% 34% 27%

Missed School % Post 3% 25% 7% 17% 7% 21% 7% 7% 14% 7% 3.50 7% 3.50 17% 7% 3.50 7% 0% 21% 7% 7% 3.50 11% 18% 7%

0%

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Table 1

% of Absent and/or Tardy

Pre-Intervention 8.7%

Post-Intervention 1.38%

Discussion

In conclusion the data supports a targeted rewards based intervention does reduce the

amount of absenteeism and tardiness in elementary aged students with high rates of absenteeism

and tardiness. Significant gains were produced during this intervention to support using this type

of intervention again.

Future Implications

The implications for Metzger were a marked increase in the amount of time that a student

is at school. Absenteeism and tardiness has proven to be one of the front line barriers to

education. To be able to address the concern in a simplistic way with such significant gains as a

result shows that this can be an intervention used in the future. This data also supports an

intervention in attendance starting at the first and most available stakeholder: the student. With

the ability to effect levels of attendance and tardiness while using minimal resources, time, and

effort this is an attractive model for the current constraints that many schools are facing. Time,

resources, and support are often scarce commodities in a school and this intervention uses little

resources. For other schools this is an example of a program that they may use as an intervention

at their school. Since the population included students of a diverse background and age level it


can be replicated in another school with a sound hypothesis that it will produce gains of some

kind in the population.

Strengths

The greatest strength of this research protocol is the small amount of resources that the

study uses. Compiling information on the student information system, Synergy, the data is

readily available and disseminated for the researcher at any time of the day. Another strength is

that the required goal of the students is simple and easy to understand, and there is a visual and

tactile component that the student must participate in. With each individual student having their

own chart they are active participants in their progress and can visually see their progress. The

use of the name “The Sunshine Club” is a veil to the rest of the population as to the reason of the

intervention and there has the potential for less identification from their peers. In conclusion the

intervention is simple, obtainable, and produces results with a small amount of effort all qualities

that are desirable in the modern elementary school.

Limitations

While the research protocol has a vast amount of strengths to it there are also some

limitations. Student matriculation can make it difficult to reward behaviors. There was a student

who left the school before the celebration day occurred. While the change in behavior caused

him to earn the reward it is also important that a student receive the reward promised. We also

noticed an age limitation; students who were in 4th

and 5th

grade were not as easily impressed by

the incentives offered. This caused us to rethink the interventions for attendance for the 4th

and

5th

grade levels and collaborate on what new interventions we could implement. Also, there were

a few days where the parent volunteers were unable to access the data sheets as they were kept in


the school counselor’s office and there were mornings that the counselor was unable to be in

their office.

The largest limitation of this study is the longevity of it. At what point do you remove a

child from the intervention and presume that a permanent behavior change has been made?

Below in Figure 2 the data was taken from the month of April to show which students kept up

with their new on time and ready to learn behavior and which did not. There were a number of

students who reverted back to their old behavior of being absent or tardy. A study that included

more time on the intervention would be useful to determine if the rewards based incentive was

truly causing an actual generalized change in behavior or just positive reinforcement for the new

behavior without extinguishing the previous behavior. If this is the case we can hypothesize that

by not having an intervention we are negatively reinforcing the behavior of being absent or tardy

for those who the intervention had previously worked for. It is also important to consider that

this behavior had been occurring since the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year, not just the

beginning of the 2014 New Year where the data was originally derived from. Many students had

previous histories of high rates of absenteeism and tardiness that had no previous intervention.


Figure 2

Future Studies

As further studies are produced in modifying students behaviors as it pertains to their

attendance rates it is important to consider the following: Are we producing behavior change that

can be generalized or will the behavior happen only with reinforcement? How do we get students

to generalize their behavior without constant monitoring and reinforcement? These are all

questions that should be addressed in further studies. It is important that when we try to modify

behavior that it doesn’t regress back to the previous state. Levels and schedules of reinforcement

need to be further solidified in order determine whether or not to provide this intervention for a

full year. While we are encouraging the pro social behavior of attendance and timeliness we need

to make sure that is the behavior that is truly being created. More education to the students

around the definition of absenteeism and tardiness could help this study. While this study was

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

K K 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 2nd 2nd 2nd 2nd 2nd 2nd 3rd 3rd 3rd 3rd 3rd 4th 4th

Series1 20% 31% 17% 20% 27% 51% 31% 27% 6% 31% 17% 13% 27% 27% 68% 31% 20% 31% 58% 34% 27% 24% 41% 34% 27%

Series2 3% 25% 7% 17% 7% 21% 7% 7% 14% 7% 3.5 7% 3.5 17% 7% 3.5 7% 0% 21% 7% 7% 3.5 11% 18% 7%

Series3 27% 27% 0.4 50% 1% 27% 27% 0% 13% 22% 0.4 13% 13% 36% 50% 13% 0.4 27% 31% 0.9 13% 31% 27% 27%

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designed for the students only one cannot ignore that there are other stakeholders that are

involved. Parents often play a role in the timeliness of their students and that is another variable

that should be independently or co-dependently studied.

Conclusion

In conclusion students will respond with significant gains to a targeted rewards based

intervention specifically targeting their absenteeism and tardiness rates. While this study is

attractive for a busy elementary school counselor, it also has its share of limitations that could be

further explored in any school. The bottom line is that if students are not in their seats ready to

learn they cannot be full participants in their education. Missing instructional time can

accumulate greatly over the school year resulting in hours, days, and even weeks of instructional

time that is lost for a student. In the current fast paced, fully packed, and academically rigorous

world of instruction students cannot afford to miss out on their education.


Appendix A

Data Sheet

Sunshine Club Member Name: ______________________________

Teacher: __________

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

My goal is to be on time for 9 school days.

If I am I get to come to the sunshine club

meeting!!


Appendix B

English Notification of Study Letter

Parents/Guardians:

Metzger Elementary hosts interns from Portland State University every year. The interns work closely

with our counselor, Sue Porter, to develop their own skills as a school counselor. As part of their

educational development the interns are required to conduct a research project within the school to

determine if an intervention is effective.

This year Laurie Gottschalk will be working with our students to help them develop strategies that would

encourage them to get to school on-time and ready to learn. To begin the program, students will be

provided a reward to celebrate when they get to school on-time. Hopefully the skills they learn through

this program will allow them to come to school on-time throughout their school career. In the past we

have found similar interventions to be highly successful with students who have tardy or absenteeism

issues.

If you have any questions or concerns about this research or would prefer that your student’s results not

be used in the study’s report; please contact Laurie Gottschalk or Sue Porter via phone, email, or in

person. This project is being conducted as an educational activity for the course COUN 589, Action

Research in School Counseling, under the supervision of Lisa Aasheim, Instructor and Program

Coordinator. She can be reached at 503.725.4253 if any questions or concerns should arise.

Laurie Gottschalk

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 503-431-4609

Sue Porter:

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 503-431-4609

Sincerely,

Laurie Gottschalk

School Counseling Candidate

Anticipated Graduation – 2014

Portland State University


Appendix C

Spanish Notification of Study Letter

Estimados Padres/Tutores:

Todos los años la escuela primaria Metzger recibe estudiantes practicantes de la Universidad del Estado

de Portland (Portland State University). Estos estudiantes practicantes trabajan cercanamente con la

consejera de la escuela, Sue Porter, para desarrollar sus propias habilidades como consejeros escolares.

Parte del desarrollo educativo de los estudiantes practicantes requiere que conduzcan un estudio

dentro de la escuela para decidir si alguna intervención adicional es requerida.

Este año, Laurie Gottschalk, trabajará con nuestros estudiantes para ayudarlos a desarrollar estrategias

para motivarlos a llegar a la escuela a tiempo y listos para estudiar. Al inicio del programa, los

estudiantes recibirán un premio para celebrar cuando lleguen a la escuela a tiempo. Esperamos que las

estrategias que aprendan en este programa los ayuden durante su carrera escolar. En el pasado hemos

notado que intervenciones similares han sido altamente efectivas con estudiantes que tienen problemas

de asistencia y dificultades llegando a la escuela a tiempo.

Si tiene alguna pregunta o preocupaciones acerca de este proyecto o preferiría que los resultados de su

estudiante no fueran publicados en este reporte, por favor comuníquese por correo electrónico,

teléfono o en persona con Laurie Gottschalk o Sue Porter. Este Proyecto es llevado a cabo como un

actividad educativa para la clase COUN 589 Estudio de Acción en Consejería escolar (Action Research in

School Counseling), bajo la supervisión de Lisa Aasheim, Instructora y Coordinadora del programa. Si

necesita comunicarse con la coordinadora del programa por favor hable al 503.725.4253.

Laurie Gottschalk

Correo electrónico: [email protected]

Teléfono: 503-431-4609

Sue Porter:

Correo electrónico: [email protected]

Teléfono: 503-431-4609

Atentamente,

Laurie Gottschalk

Candidata a Consejera Escolar

Fecha de Graduación – 2014

Universidad Del Estado de Portland


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