Educators are seeing the signs every day: students who are chronically absent, reluctant to participate, or simply seem disconnected from school.
There is no single explanation. Health, family circumstances, academic struggles, and other barriers can all affect whether a student shows up and engages. But research also points to a factor schools can influence: whether students feel known, supported, and connected.
That makes healthy relationships and the skills to build them more than a nice addition to the school day. They are part of the conditions students need to participate and succeed.
What the Research Tells Us
Relationship science starts from a simple premise: healthy relationships don’t just happen. Students need opportunities to connect, skills to build and maintain relationships, and school environments that make connections possible.
A decade of research on Sanford Harmony, including randomized controlled trials, has found improvements in peer relationships, prosocial behavior, school connection, and academics, along with reductions in aggression and bullying. Across studies, the Harmony curriculum was associated with a 10% increase in school enjoyment, a 6% improvement in class connection and academic achievement, and a 34% reduction in aggressive behavior.
One core practice, Buddy Up, an activity that promotes intentional peer connection, was associated with a 67% increase in playing with new classmates, a 54% decrease in aggressive behavior, and improvements in peer interactions and prosocial behavior.
What we’ve learned from this research is that strong relationships shouldn’t be left to chance. For school leaders, the challenge is creating the conditions for relationship-building to happen intentionally and consistently across classrooms, schools, and districts.
What It Can Look Like in Practice
Across the country, educators are making connection part of routines that already exist.
Connie Michaels, a fifth-grade teacher in southeastern Montana, starts each morning with a classroom circle using Harmony’s Conversation Cards. The consistency, she says, helps students build trust and gives them a reason to feel connected to the classroom community.
Other practices can be just as simple. At one Delaware charter school, staff made a commitment to greet students as they move through the school. In a California district, one educator uses a digital tool to randomly pair students for Harmony’s Buddy Up activities, helping them build relationships beyond their usual friend groups.
The goal of our work is not to add another initiative for schools to juggle. It is to give educators practical tools they can use within the school day they already have—and give school and district leaders a shared approach that can carry from classroom to classroom and school to school.
Connection and the Attendance Challenge
Relationship science also offers another way to think about attendance: What kind of experience are students having when they walk through the door?
Students are more likely to come to school when they feel connected and engaged. That shifts the focus from responding to absences toward proactively building meaningful relationships with adults and peers before attendance becomes a problem.
Michaels has seen what that can mean for attendance. A group of students who had averaged 60% attendance in fourth grade attended 90% of the first two months in her classroom. One teacher's experience isn't proof of cause and effect, but it illustrates something the broader research suggests: when students feel connected and engaged, showing up can become part of that connection.
Starting With the School Day Students Already Have
A good place to start is with the interactions already happening every day: how students are welcomed, whether they connect with classmates outside their immediate friend groups and whether they have regular opportunities to build relationships with adults and peers.
But the bigger opportunity is to build in districtwide consistency. When educators have practical tools, shared language, and common relationship-building practices, those individual moments can become part of a larger culture—one that students experience from classroom to classroom and school to school.
Relationships may be built one interaction at a time. But creating the conditions for them to happen consistently is a leadership decision.
Dr. Nick Yoder is Associate Vice President, Head of Innovation & Research, Sanford Harmony. A former first-grade teacher and national expert on child development, Dr. Yoder holds a Ph.D. in Education and Psychology. He helps schools across the country embed relationship-building into their daily routines—improving focus, collaboration, and well-being.
