Integrated Analyses

Out of the 32 school districts, 16 districts and one charter school are participating in MTSS, 16 districts (50%) are accessing the Bridges to Success program, and 13 districts (41%) have completed at the CA Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) Core Module in 2020-2021. Twenty-five districts (78%) have accessed at least one of the three options to support and measure student SEL and mental health. Seven school districts (22%) have not engaged in any of these options included in the current county scan of social-emotional learning, student mental health and wellbeing programs/tools.

The analyses completed prior to this section have focused primarily on the relationship between social, emotional, and health programs and student level outcomes at the district level. When examined independently, these programs positively correlate with student level outcomes of interest and trend in the direction hypothesized to measure impact. For example, districts engaging in MTSS display a decline in chronic absenteeism rates. This is consistent with what was found through the statewide data analyses. A similar decline in chronic absensteeism rates was also displayed for districts engaging with the Bridges program compared to districts that did not report the same level of engagement.

The interactive graphics below display the integration of data across the CHKS with the MTSS and Bridges cohorts. The interactive effects are also displayed for chronic absenteeism. Further analyses are being conducted to determine if the interactive effects are statistically significant.

Note: 2019-2020 data is not included due to modified data collection methods and restricted data reporting as specified in Assembly Bill 130 (Committee on Budget) Chapter 44 of Statutes of 2021. Additional analyses will be conducted as additional education and public health data become available.

When sorting Chronic Absenteeism by initiative, the strongest effect seems to emerge when examining the MTSS cohort performance and Bridges cohort performance simultaneously. To determine if these patterns were statistically significant and examine the integrated effects on additional student outcomes, district participation in MTSS, Bridges, and CHKS on academic performance, engagement, and conditions and climate was examined using a linear mixed model restricted maximum likelihood analysis. Further, we fit a single model for each parameter with interactions for all interventions in question to understand how the existence of multiple interventions may affect the results of each individual one.

Districts accessing Bridges referral services were associated with an increase of 12.6 percentage points in graduation rates when tested both independently and jointly with the other interventions of interest. Receiving a Bridges referral was also associated with a statistically significant decrease of 10 percentage points in drop-out rates when tested jointly with other interventions. These are especially notable results because of the magnitude of the effects and the strength of the statistical significance. Further, it is interesting that a strong impact of the Bridges program on dropout rates is uncovered when controlling for MTSS Participation in the model. This points to the possibility of a symbiotic relationship between the interventions, wherein certain benefits of the Bridges program are accessible in conjunction with participation in MTSS. Further analysis should investigate these benefits more deeply.

Participation in the 2020-21 CHKS Core Survey was associated with a 3.2 percentage point decrease in rates of suspension when tested independently, and a 3.8 percentage point decrease in rates of suspension when tested jointly with other interventions. Student surveying has been shown to be associated with a decrease in suspensions. Future analyses could investigate other parameters of school climate that we would expect to be positively affected by surveying, such as expulsion and attendance rates.

MTSS Participation was associated with a statistically significant decrease of 0.7 percentage points in dropout rates when tested independently; this effect disappears when tested jointly with Bridges referral. However, MTSS is a targeted intervention, where we would expect to see significant effects on the experiences of specific students but a diluted effect at the school- or district- level. As we are analyzing district-level data, we would expect to find stronger indications in the individual tests. This also means that there may be information to cautiously glean when relaxing the significance level.