A girl was chronically late for first period at her high school. The school counselor met with her, and they took a quick assessment that launched a conversation.

They found out that the girl was responsible for getting her younger sisters ready every morning, and the school adjusted her start time so she could make it to school last year.

“She wasn’t doing anything negative or bad. She had more responsibility at home than most kids have,” says Brian French, Berry Family Distinguished and Regents Professor at Washington State University’s College of Education. It’s important to understand the environment to get students back to school, he says.

French and a team of WSU researchers manage and refine the tool used by the student and school counselor: the Washington Assessment of the Risks and Needs of Students (WARNS). The 40-question, web-based assessment for middle and high school students offers a way to identify individual reasons for missing school.

WARNS is crucial as a wave of truancy and chronic absenteeism sweeps across schools throughout the country. About 26 percent of public school students in most states were considered chronically absent⁠—typically missing about 18 school days for any reason⁠—in the 2022–23 school year. That’s up from 15 percent before the pandemic, according to an American Enterprise Institute study.

Chronic absenteeism hinders educational recovery from the pandemic, too. If students aren’t in school, they can’t learn and their absence disrupts classrooms.

Washington state has another motivation for the WARNS assessment. The “Becca Bill” law requires all children between the ages of 8 and 18 to attend school regularly, and schools to work with families to ensure attendance.

Paul Strand, a psychology professor at WSU Tri-Cities, says WARNS measures six areas critical to healthy social, emotional, and educational development: aggression-defiance, depression-anxiety, substance use, peer deviance, school engagement, and family environment.

A trained child psychologist, Strand says those dimensions can “try to identify reasons why kids haven’t come back to school.”

Almost half of Washington school districts use WARNS. The assessment can help provide a framework for school counselors and others to start conversations with youth and create personalized action plans for improving attendance.

Conversations and rapport with school personnel are key to translating WARNS into meaningful action, French says. Counselors can ask students, “‘What’s going on in your environment? What can we change that helps you get back on track?’ That’s the power of that type of information,” he says.

Thao Vo (’15 Psych., ’19 MA, ’24 PhD Ed. Psych.), who works on WARNS, did a deep dive for her doctoral dissertation with three school districts⁠—a rural, suburban, and urban district⁠—to find how they used WARNS.

“I wanted to know how specialists navigate this idea of chronic absenteeism, truancy, and overall risks for disengagement,” Vo says.

She found each district had distinct responses based on resources and school procedures. For example, Vo says the rural school district leans into family and community to meet student needs, since many services are farther away.

The WARNS team trains school personnel, and they work closely with school districts on ways to use and improve the assessment. “We want to be responsive to schools, so we provide them with different ways to think about scores and how to interact with kids with respect to their scores,” Strand says.

For example, Chad Gotch (’12 PhD Ed. Psych.), an associate professor in educational psychology, works with the team to develop fictional vignettes for each test dimension as conversation starters with students.

Gotch notes that the tool offers another important benefit. “WARNS is an opportunity to connect a student with an adult who cares,” he says. “And we know that can be powerful.”

French says the future for WARNS could be a modified instrument for elementary school students, a shorter version, and possibly expansion to more states. WARNS is already used in a few Wisconsin, Virginia, and Minnesota school districts and youth service providers.

WARNS can be powerful for students as well as schools. “We want to see changes that actually increase student empowerment, engagement, and strengthening relationships with school staff and family,” Vo says.

French and the WARNS team feel those outcomes are a rewarding way to help the state’s communities.

“It is meaningful work. What’s more essential than helping kids stay connected to school? It’s just a very fundamental thing that we should be engaged in,” Gotch says.

 

Web exclusive

Why are they absent? Q&A with Washington State University researchers on assessing chronic absenteeism and truancy in schools

 

Learn more

Washington Assessment of the Risks and Needs of Students (WARNS) at WSU

Attendance, Chronic Absenteeism, and Truancy (Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction)

Amid nationwide struggle to rebound school attendance to pre-COVID numbers, one school district stands out (Spokesman-Review, July 7, 2024)

Has School Become Optional? (New Yorker, January 8, 2024)

Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’ Almost Everywhere (New York Times, March 29, 2024)