Attend and ascend: Education alum's pilot program increases 10th grade attendance by 14%

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—Turning around attendance, Western Michigan University alumna Alysia Baznik, B.S.'18, M.A.'22, is luring students back to the classroom with her new token economy. A special education teacher at Kalamazoo Public Schools' Loy Norrix High School, she has been able to increase the number of sophomores attending class full-time by 14% for those attending class 90% of the time or higher.

"When I became the department head for special education, I started attending leadership team meetings and kept hearing that our attendance is low," says Baznik. "Through my master's program at WMU, we talked about behavior and one of the interventions we studied was the token economy."

"There was some pushback about doing it because the school didn't have the funds due to the start up cost, so I reached out to some of my previous professors at Western to help write a grant."

According to Baznik, the token economy is a type of positive behavior intervention support (PBIS) attendance intervention, where students are rewarded for demonstrating desired behaviors.

"The token economy provides students with rewards for attending class. So, for every day a student attends their five classes, they receive a point," explains Baznik. "With that, there's things on the cart that I push around that are worth one point like backpack pins and squishy things. And there are items that are two points like snacks and 6 points for writing tablets.

"There's a good group of kids that are working for the biggest purchase which would be me taking them for food, games and bowling at Airway Lanes. They're saving their points and don't purchase anything from the cart."

Faculty support

Costly, Baznik's token economy system required start-up funds to purchase rewards for students. Unable to find funding from the school because of the high initial cost, she reached out to Dr. Rena VanDerwall, assistant professor of special education at WMU. 

"When Dr. VanDerwall was working with Kalamazoo Central High School, she went through the Kalamazoo Community Foundation for grants to fund her positive behavior supports," says Baznik. "So, she and my previous professor, Dr. Kate LaLonde, associate professor of special education, helped answer my questions and guided me through how to write a grant." 

Successfully navigating the process, Baznik was able to secure funding for her first round of PBIS intervention from the Kalamazoo Foundation. She decided to limit the first group of students to those in the 10th grade to provide more reward options. 

"If I did the whole school, there wouldn't be as many options the students could purchase," says Baznik. "So, potentially with this new grant I applied for, we would able to keep these same incentives on top of adding a couple of more."

Program success

Surpassing expectations, Baznik says the results from the initial group of students is promising.

"From the data collected, the 10th grade class has increased their 90% attendance or higher category from 50% to 64%," says Baznik. "It's a 14% increase and it shows that there's significant growth."

Additionally, the feedback received from students and staff at Loy Norrix has been positive since the intervention started in fall 2024.

"In the beginning, when the 10th graders were showing up to the cart they weren't sure what it was," says Baznik. "Now you can hear them chattering with friends about how cool it is they get things with their attendance."

"Also it is building positive morale in the school. Teachers and students have positive interactions because we are giving something positive to them." 

Looking at the bigger picture, Baznik is hopeful that increased student attendance will lead to greater utilization of the Kalamazoo Promise. Offering up to 100% college tuition assistance for graduates of Kalamazoo Public Schools, the Promise makes the dream of a higher education attainable. 

"By increasing attendance, which in previous research studies has improved grades, that this would increasing the number of students using their Kalamazoo Promise benefits," says Baznik. "It'll be at the end of the year when I start pulling that GPA data."

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