DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37037.v1
title: MDRC's Evaluation of Communities In Schools (CIS), North Carolina and Texas, 2011-2014
title: Version 1

description: Communities In Schools (CIS) works to provide and connect students with integrated support services to keep them on a path to graduation. The intent of the CIS model is to reduce dropout rates by integrating community and school-based support services within schools through the provision of "Level 1" and "Level 2" services. Level 1 services are broadly available to all students or to groups of students and are usually short-term, low intensity activities or services. CIS Coordinators spend much of their time focused on more intensive Level 2 "case-managed" services, which they provide to a subset of students displaying one or more significant risk factors, such as poor academic performance, a high absentee rate, or behavioral problems.
This study was a two-year randomized controlled trial of Level-2 CIS case management, which examined service provision, student experiences and student outcomes. This trial was half of a two-pronged national evaluation, the other half was a quasi-experimental study of the whole-school model. The study evaluated 24 mostly urban, low-income secondary schools in North Carolina and Texas during the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 school years; baseline data was also collected during the 2011-2012 school year. Data was collected through student surveys, school records, and CIS management information systems (MIS) data.
The data in this collection is student-level, including all information collected about students in the study sample with 613 variables and 4459 cases. The dataset includes three school years of data: baseline period (2011-2012), first year of implementation (2012-2013) and second year of implementation (2013-2014). Demographic variables in this collection include: free lunch status, special education status, employment, race, language, ethnicity, gender, household members, number of siblings, parents' education level, and grade level.
description: The Communities In Schools (CIS) model posits that providing individual support to at-risk students will provide them with the skills and resources they need to succeed. The case management activities offered by CIS were expected to affect nonacademic outcomes related to students' attitudes, behaviors, and relationships. The services provided to a student were intended to foster supportive relationships with adults and peers, encourage greater engagement with school, stimulate greater effort to meet academic and behavioral expectations, and increase the value that students saw in their schooling. Effects on these nonacademic outcomes were hypothesized to indirectly affect more traditional school outcomes, such as attendance, performance in class, and disruptive behavior in school. These traditional school outcomes, in turn, were hypothesized to predict students' likelihood of eventually graduating from high school.
description: This study of Communities In Schools (CIS) case management relied on a random assignment research design and was conducted in 28 CIS secondary schools in five affiliates. The middle schools and high schools that underwent random assignment for this study had more eligible students (those facing challenges that threatened to impede their progress toward graduation) than could be included in site coordinators' caseloads. These students were randomly assigned to join site coordinators' caseloads (the case-managed group) or to continue with "business as usual," with access to whatever other forms of support were available, including CIS Level 1 service (the non-case-managed group).
In the second year of the study, 24 of the 28 study schools (in four of the five affiliates) agreed to continue to participate. Students in the case-managed group in these schools could continue to receive case management for a second year (and students in the non-case-managed group were not offered case management). In this group of 24 schools, both case-managed and non-case-managed students were followed for two school years: 2012-2013 and 2013-2014.
The quantitative data collected about students in the study were obtained via:

Student Surveys: Students in both study groups, case-managed and non-case-managed, participated in the baseline survey in the fall of 2012, and follow-up surveys in the spring of 2013 (the first year of the study) and the spring of 2014 (the second year of the study).; 
School Records: To answer the research questions about the effect of case management on students' school outcomes, the study relied on student records data obtained from participating school districts. These districts provided baseline data (before random assignment) about students for the 2011-2012 school year and follow-up data (after random assignment) for the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 school years (after case-managed students could have received one and two years of service, respectively).; 
Management Information System (MIS) Data: In this study, management information system data (information on program operations that has the ability to produce reports on the program's management) recorded by CIS site coordinators was used to measure the amount and types of services case-managed students received.;
description: The collection includes variables on students' nonacademic and more traditional school outcomes. Variables on academic school outcomes include GPA, attendance, and disruptive behavior in school such as suspensions. Other variables include measures of activities at school, relationships with adults, academic goals, friendship, motivation at school, and belonging at school.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of 
				disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major 
				statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to 
				these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
			   		Created variable labels and/or value labels.; Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Response Rates: 
					Year 1

School Records Sample = 92 percent; 
Student Survey Sample = 94 percent; 
Year 2

School Records Sample = 85 percent; 
Student Survey Sample = 80 percent;
description: Datasets: 
					
						DS1: Dataset
description: record abstracts
description: mail questionnaire
description: High school students in North Carolina and Texas who were assigned to a treatment or control group during the academic school years of 2011-2012, 2012-2013, and 2013-2014.
				   		Smallest Geographic Unit: School district
description: Students were randomly assigned to join site coordinators' caseloads (the case-managed group) or to continue with "business as usual," with access to whatever other forms of support were available, including CIS Level 1 services (the non-case-managed group).
The data included as part of this collection contains data from the baseline year (2011-2012), Study Year 1 (2012-2013) with 2,230 respondents, and Study Year 2 (2013-2014) with 2,229 respondents. Grades included as part of the study range from sixth grade to twelfth grade. The non-case managed comparison group, or control, included 2,180 students; whereas the case managed group, or program, included 2,279 students. The gender of the sample's respondents was more female (n=2,460) than male (n=1,999).