Washington’s Public Schools Reengage Students by Fostering Sense of Belonging

The COVID-19 pandemic affected every facet of the public education system — including the enrollment and engagement of students. During the pandemic, students across the state disconnected from school for a variety of reasons: they sought employment to support their family, cared for younger siblings, experienced illness, experienced food and housing insecurity, and more.

In Washington, educators and education professionals have been able to reconnect students to their public schools by, quite literally, meeting them where they are.

With support from federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, Washington schools are expanding home visits with students and their families, developing summer programs and tutoring supports, and providing students with technology and other needed resources. The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) has also invested more than $15 million to support reengagement efforts in communities with the highest need.

Below is a look at how two different school districts are reenrolling and reengaging students.

Burlington-Edison School District

The Burlington-Edison School District has learned that reenrolling and reengaging students means making school a safe and supportive place.

“If we just say, ‘Hey, come to school, show up and go back to your classes like you’re supposed to,’ I’ll just tell you that doesn’t work,” said Kim Welling, Student Support Services Administrator. What students need, she said, is “that person who will listen to them.”

Welling estimated that, of the 3,335 students enrolled in her district in the 2021–22 school year, 62 students were categorized as dropped out, which occurs after a student has 20 consecutive, unexcused absences.

She added that there’s a range of reasons behind these dropouts: some have experienced illness; some have needed to get jobs or care for younger siblings; some have faced food and housing insecurity; and some haven’t had sufficient access to the necessary technology.

In some cases, students may have fallen so far behind in their academics that they fear they’ll never get caught up.

“It’s our job to find that hope for them, that maybe they can still graduate or maybe they can still get credits,” Welling said. “Maybe we can find you an alternative way to be in school.”

Using ESSER funding, the school district hired a tutor who, with support from the district’s technology department, met with students in parks or school parking lots and used computers and WiFi hotspots to work with them.

The district has also hired a mentor who has been able to reconnect with students during home visits with them and their families in their primary language. Welling said the mentor has been particularly successful at getting students invested in activities that keep them coming to school, like counseling services or sports programs.

“When we meet with kids, we don’t start with academics,” Welling said. “We set goals based on what’s happening at home. … Not every kid has the same supports at home.”

Welling emphasized the importance of reengaging students with their school, where there are educators and staff who care about them.

“My goal is to get them on campus, where they’re safe,” Welling said.

Yakima School District

Even before the pandemic, the Yakima School District faced challenges with student attendance, according to Dr. Jenny Rodriguez, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning.

“Absenteeism was a huge problem before the pandemic,” Rodriguez said. “Our attendance as a district, pre-pandemic, was 75%.”

In the months leading up to the statewide school building closures that went into effect from March through June 2020, the Yakima School District built a new strategic plan that identified attendance as one of five goal areas. When the pandemic shifted students’ learning online, that work got put on pause as administrators and staff dedicated all their efforts to the urgent work of navigating a pandemic.

Rodriguez said her school district treated the pandemic as a “health crisis” and, as a result, continued educating students virtually for longer than some neighboring districts.

“We serve a high poverty community,” Rodriguez said. “We have many families [who] live in multigenerational homes,” she added, noting that the school district wanted to protect its community from illness.

When students returned to their school buildings full-time in the spring of 2021, Rodriguez observed a decline in enrollments. She figures that some students had moved away, as the school district serves a high number of students who are migratory.

To reengage students who have not returned to school, the district maintains a roster of names and school officials make multiple attempts to contact those students in home visits, phone calls, and letters written in both English and Spanish. More broadly, the school district has been examining its systems overall to better support students who are multilingual/English learners and students who are migratory.

The school district also partners with local community groups to emphasize the importance of school attendance and collaborate on ways to get students to school. The community also posted billboards, in English and Spanish, about attendance goals. In addition, the school district worked with Communities in Schools, a nation-wide non-profit organization that supports young people, to bring in coordinators who can connect students with community resources.

Rodriguez said that getting students enrolled in and attending school is a challenge for the whole community, and one that the whole community must solve together. Within the schools themselves, what administrators and educators can do is make school a place that students want to come to.

“What’s within our sphere of control is, Is school safe? Is school engaging? Do I feel loved? Do I feel connected to an adult? Am I learning how to self-regulate and be a kind human?” Rodriguez said. “I think that’s what hooks kids into coming, is knowing that people care about them.”

Additional Information

• Reengagement stories: Overview (OSPI video)
• Reengagement stories: Elida’s story (OSPI video)
• Reengagement stories: Antonio Inspires (OSPI video)
• Reengagement stories: Anna’s story (OSPI video)
• Reengagement stories: Goldie’s story (OSPI video)

This story was written by Chelsea Embree, Communications Strategist at OSPI. You can contact the Communications Team at commteam@k12.wa.us.