School-Based Support Staff and Chronic Absenteeism: Evidence from North Carolina

In this paper, I investigate the causal impact of school-based support staff on student absences and chronic absenteeism using the introduction of the Child and Family Support Team (CFST) program in North Carolina. Introduced during the 2006/07 school year, the CFST program funded two-person teams composed of a nationally-certified school nurse and a state-licensed school social worker in 43 elementary schools. The teams worked in schools to identify and intervene with students who faced economic, health, and social barriers to academic success. Taking advantage of two sources of variation, I estimate impacts for students in directly treated schools, which received CFST teams, and indirectly treated schools, which experienced staffing increases through district reallocation and hiring responses to CFST. Using event-study and difference-in-differences approaches, I find that high-risk students in directly treated schools experienced reductions in absences of 0.4 days per year (6%) and a 0.9 percentage point reduction in the likelihood of chronic absenteeism (12%). Students in indirectly treated schools experienced smaller declines in absences of 0.2 days per year (3%) but no statistically significant effects on the likelihood of chronic absenteeism. Although I interpret the estimates from indirectly treated schools with caution, the pattern and magnitude of effects corroborate the main findings from directly treated schools. Overall, the main results indicate that intensive, team-based school-based support staffing models are effective for identifying and supporting high-risk students. The findings highlight the role of health and social services in reducing chronic absenteeism and inform education policy related to school-based support staff in K-12 public schools.