Can Home Visits Re-Engage Chronically Absent Students? Evidence from the LEAP Program -- by Eric Brunner, Shangyue Jiang, Stephen Ross

Beginning in the summer of 2021, the state of Connecticut launched the Learner Engagement and Attendance Program (LEAP) where home visits by school personnel were conducted with students identified as chronically absent from Connecticut’s 15 most disadvantaged school districts. Home visits were designed to connect students and their families directly with teachers to foster strong connections. We use student-level data from 2021–22 through 2023-24 to estimate event studies of the effect of LEAP on student attendance, chronic absenteeism, disciplinary incidents, and student achievement. Utilizing models that address selection into treatment timing over student observable and unobservable attributes, we find that students who received the LEAP intervention experienced approximately a 4 to 5 percentage point increase in attendance rates, a 13 to 15 percentage point decline in chronic absenteeism, and a 3 to 5 percentage point decline in the number of disciplinary incidents. Notably, initial event studies indicated increasing treatment effects over time, but after correcting for selection on unobservables treatment effects appeared constant over time. These effects were broad based, with similar impacts by gender, race and ethnicity, and free or reduced-price lunch status. These attendance and discipline results provide suggest that the LEAP intervention increased student noncognitive skills. Acknowledgements and Disclosures The authors thank the Center for Connecticut Education Research Collaboration for financial support in conducting this research and the Connecticut State Department of Education for both providing administrative data and advice on the usage of the data. We are especially grateful to Morgaen Donaldson and Alexandra Lamb at the Center for Connecticut Education Research Collaboration and Ajit Gopalakrishnan and Brianna Hennessy for feedback on this research. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. The authors thank the Center for Connecticut Education Research Collaboration for financial support in conducting this research and the Connecticut State Department of Education for both providing administrative data and advice on the usage of the data. We are especially grateful to Morgaen Donaldson and Alexandra Lamb at the Center for Connecticut Education Research Collaboration and Ajit Gopalakrishnan and Brianna Hennessy for feedback on this research. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Citation and Citation Data Copy Citation Eric Brunner, Shangyue Jiang, and Stephen Ross, "Can Home Visits Re-Engage Chronically Absent Students? Evidence from the LEAP Program," NBER Working Paper 35961 (2026), https://doi.org/10.3386/w35961. Copy to Clipboard Download Citation MARC RIS BibTeΧ Download Citation Data In addition to working papers, the NBER disseminates affiliates’ latest findings through a range of free periodicals—the NBER Reporter, the NBER Digest, the Bulletin on Health, the Bulletin on the Economics of Alzheimer's, and the Bulletin on Entrepreneurship—as well as research spotlights, lectures, and panel videos. Presenters: Melissa Dell & Ashesh Rambachan Presenter: Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham