This Fall, I introduced a new tool for viewing all district data in one place: MSAD #51 Data Dashboard. This week begins an intermittent series digging into specific indicators from this data collection, with a balanced approach that both highlights areas of celebration and those in need of further work. Note that the latest reporting period is from the 2023-24 school year, with most historical data available back to the 2014-15 school year.
I will start this series with two areas worthy of celebration due to improving data: attendance and chronic absenteeism. You may recall that these are also district-wide strategic priorities and principals have been stressing the importance of attendance with more frequency over the last year. Going back to 2015, our typical average daily attendance (ADA) was 96%, and (like other school districts) we saw a general decline during the post-pandemic years of 2021-22 and 2022-23. Last school year we began to turn a corner as ADA rose to 95%, with hopes of returning to 96% by the end of this school year.
ADA doesn't tell the whole story, though. More glaring is the chronic absenteeism data we have been tracking since 2018, the first year the state required schools to report this information. During the same post-pandemic years of 2021-23, chronic absenteeism hit 14% before dropping off to 8.3% in 2023-24. Though still a way to go in hitting the low of 6.4% during the 2018-19 year, we are working hard to partner with families in reducing the number of students who are missing large numbers of school days. We know that nothing replaces consistent daily instruction and learning experiences when it comes to academic progress, and making regular school attendance a priority for each student raises the bar for all students.