The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) partnered with the after-school program DC SCORES last school year to explore attendance patterns and four-year high school graduation rates for students who participated in grades K-8. Overall, OSSE found that DC SCORES participants had stronger attendance than students who did not participate in the program.
What is DC SCORES?
DC SCORES is a free, year-round after-school program that combines soccer, poetry, and service learning to support student physical health, social and emotional development, and academic engagement. During the 2025-26 school year, the program served approximately 3,500 students at 68 Title I elementary and middle schools across the District. The program also receives out-of-school-time funding through a Learn24 grant.
Using a whole-child approach, DC SCORES combines sports, arts, literacy, and service activities into a single program led by trusted adults, most of whom are teachers or school staff. The program is grounded in research showing that early development of social and emotional learning skills (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, decision-making) contributes to long-term social and academic success.
Belonging and trusting relationships are central to the program. The program’s theory of change is that when students know their teammates and coaches count on them, they have daily motivation to attend school. Because about 90 percent of coaches work in the same school their poet-athletes attend, the adult who notices a missed practice is often the same person who notices a missed class. Students say these connections matter. In end-of-season surveys, 98 percent say they care about their teammates, 97 percent feel safe at DC SCORES, and 95 percent are confident they will graduate from high school. As one seventh grader at Excel Academy described: “It feels good, because I know that people are here to support me.”
What Did We Analyze?
OSSE examined the demographic characteristics, attendance, and four-year high school graduation rates of program participants by cohort from the 2018-19 school year through the 2024-25 school year, excluding the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years during the COVID-19 pandemic. OSSE also compared attendance and graduation outcomes for DC SCORES participants with those of students in the same grades and schools who did not participate in the program. These comparisons help illustrate differences in outcomes. They do not show whether DC SCORES caused those differences.
What Did We Find?
Demographic Differences: DC SCORES participants differed slightly from students in the same grades and schools who did not participate. DC SCORES participants were more likely to be Hispanic, English learners, and male, and less likely to be Black, economically disadvantaged, or students with disabilities compared with overall school demographics.
Attendance Patterns: Across all years analyzed, DC SCORES participants had stronger attendance than non-participants. In the 2024-25 school year, the average attendance rate for DC SCORES participants was 92 percent compared with 88 percent for non-participants. In addition, 25 percent of DC SCORES participants were chronically absent compared with 42 percent of non-participants. However, because participants also had stronger attendance in prior years, interpret these findings with caution.
Prior Attendance: Students who participated in DC SCORES had stronger attendance than their peers in previous years. For example, for DC SCORES participants in the 2024–25 school year, their 2023–24 average attendance rate was 93 percent—though some students may have already been participating—compared with 90 percent for students who did not participate in 2024–25. This means we cannot determine whether the program improved attendance or whether students with stronger attendance were more likely to participate. A study designed to account for differences between the groups would help assess the program’s effect.
Years of Participation: Students participated in DC SCORES for an average of one to two years across cohorts, including participation outside public schools (e.g., private schools and recreation centers). In the 2024-25 school year, participants averaged 1.6 years in the program.
Graduation Rates: OSSE compared four-year high school graduation rates for students with no DC SCORES participation, less than three years of participation, and three or more years of participation, to see whether graduation rates differed by length of participation. Graduation rates were highest among students with three or more years of DC SCORES participation compared with both non-participants and those with fewer years of participation. In 2024-25, the four-year graduation rate was 89 percent for students with three or more years of program participation, 81 percent for students with less than three years, and 79 percent for non-participants. As with attendance, this analysis cannot determine whether participating in DC SCORES contributed to these differences.
Conclusion
DC SCORES participants had higher attendance and graduation rates than non-participants, but they also differ in ways that this descriptive analysis does not account for. More research is needed to determine whether the program contributed to the differences.
These findings raise a question for future research: How does the length of participation relate to student outcomes? DC SCORES participants with three or more years of program participation graduated at higher rates, yet most participated for less than two years. Expanding access across school feeder patterns could help more students stay in the program through middle school. DC SCORES emphasizes belonging, trusting relationships, and consistent participation.