Cabot administrators report modest drop in behavior referrals and slight uptick in attendance

District staff presented a three-year view of nonacademic student data and told the Cabot School Board that total behavior referrals have declined from two years ago and that average attendance is essentially steady with a small increase.

Assistant administrators said they compared multi-year totals to measure trends as the school year wound down with seven days left. Presenters — including a district data systems manager — said behavior referrals decreased from 11,095 two years ago to roughly 10,200 in the current year (the presenter noted seven school days remained in the reporting period). They urged caution in interpreting the numbers, stressing the importance of accurate data entry in eSchool and related systems and warning against understating referral counts to make metrics appear better than reality.

The presenters also said average attendance rose slightly from about 92.42% to 92.44% across the same interval. They said attendance remains an accountability focus and that district efforts and incentives are designed to keep students in school.

During the presentation staff said they will conduct more detailed, building-level follow-up this summer to examine referral types and to verify data integrity. The data-systems manager, Pam Carter, was credited in the meeting for the ability to pull ad hoc reports and to run the district summaries presented to the board.

The curriculum report was informational; no board action was requested. Presenters emphasized that truthful, complete data is necessary for realistic planning and resource allocation, and that district leaders prefer accurate reporting to suppressing referrals for appearance’s sake.