Massachusetts Okay-12 public college lecturers and workers missed a mean of about 12 days within the 2024-25 college yr, in line with new state knowledge.
The Division of Elementary and Secondary Schooling launched attendance knowledge for all workers at public Okay-12 colleges within the state at a board assembly Tuesday, the primary time the state has launched one of these knowledge.
On the state degree, lecturers missed a mean of 11.7 days of the 2024-25 college yr and directors missed 11.3 days, in line with the information. All college workers, together with positions like paraprofessionals and assist workers, missed a mean of 11.9 days.
Every class averaged an attendance charge of round 93% to 94%, the state knowledge confirmed.
As for college students, absences are outlined as lacking greater than half of the workday for a motive that falls exterior of paid college trip time or district-approved skilled growth exercise.
The workers knowledge was about on par with scholar attendance, which additionally was a mean statewide of about 93% or 11.9 days within the 2024-25 college yr, in line with DESE knowledge.
State officers famous the significance of this knowledge when fascinated about the influence of absences on college students’ schooling.
“When we think about the reason, when we think about the importance of attendance at school, I think we can agree that there’s nothing more important than students having access to not only teachers, but all staff in their schools, and all the services that our schools can offer,” stated Rob Curtin, DESE chief knowledge officer.
In Boston Public Colleges, lecturers missed a mean of 10.7 days within the 2024-25 college yr, the information confirmed. Directors have been absent 12.2 days on common, and all workers have been absent 11.5 days.
BPS noticed decrease attendance charges for college students within the 2024-25 college yr, at 90% or a mean of 17.2 days missed per scholar. Thirty-three % of scholars in BPS have been chronically absent, lacking a minimum of 10% of the college yr, in line with the information.
The BPS attendance is an enchancment from the earlier 2023-24 college yr, at 89.5% attendance charge and 34.6% chronically absent.
The Massachusetts Lecturers Affiliation urged state officers to make use of the brand new knowledge to “ensure educators and students are receiving the resources and support that they need.”
“The vast majority of districts show an educator attendance rate of well over 90%,” stated MTA President Max Web page and Vice President Deb McCarthy. “But this data does not reflect the reasons why educators take time off and cannot be used in any punitive way against educators.”
The union emphasised the roll of “school safety and the ability of educators to care for themselves and their family members” in attendance, advocating for paid household depart and scholar psychological well being assets.
DESE Commissioner Pedro Martinez stated the discharge of the workers knowledge was “not popular,” however “districts need to analyze this information to see what the impact is.”
For districts throughout the state, most ranged between a mean of 0 and 20 absences within the final college yr. The vary went slightly larger for directors, with some districts having a mean of 40 days. In a single district, Northampton-Smith Vocational Agricultural, directors have been absent a mean of 57.9 days.
“I really wanted for this first year to be, ‘Let’s understand it, and let’s get into a cadence of reporting it,’” stated Martinez. … “At the end, what really we want to get down to is… districts to have ownership of the data and to understand how it’s impacting what’s happening in their classrooms.”
