Specific schoolsFull briefing
Bronx Aerospace High School cut chronic absenteeism by 34 points. How?
The longer form of the briefing for this story: the original thesis, the supporting findings the data team flagged, and the reporting directions a journalist could follow. For the short version and the data analysis, see the main story page.
Thesis
From 67% to 32% chronic absenteeism in five years, despite serving a challenging-demographic population (proclivity decile 8). Bronx Aerospace HS is the single most-improved school on the most-stuck NYC metric. Story is: what did they actually do?
Supporting findings
- Bronx Aerospace HS chronic absenteeism: 67.3% (2018-19) → 32.7% (2024-25). Delta: -34.6 points.
- Proclivity decile 8 — most-challenged student population bucket.
- This is the biggest delta in the city, and not a one-year fluke (need to confirm by plotting all 7 years).
- Other high schools nearby (same neighborhood, same demographics) didn't improve as much — so it's not zip code economic recovery.
- What's the school's principal tenure? Their NYC DOE Galaxy budget?
- Did they hire attendance teachers? Did they restructure schedules? Did they get a community-school partnership?
- Look at academic outcomes over the same window — did better attendance translate to better test scores or grad rates?
- Are they in the Renewal Schools program (NYC's 2014-19 intervention)?
- Pull their NYC School Survey results — what do teachers/students say about why attendance improved?
- Compare to Bronxdale HS, Gotham Collaborative HS, Frederick Douglass III — all also in the top-10 improvers from challenged-demographic buckets.
Reporting directions
- Visit Bronx Aerospace. Interview principal, attendance team, students.
- Pull 7-year attendance trajectory at Bronx Aerospace.
- Pull every grant award NYC DOE / NYSED / federal stimulus has made to Bronx Aerospace 2018-24.
- Compare with national 'attendance turnaround' literature (Robert Balfanz at Johns Hopkins).