Supervisors of attendance updated the Milford School Committee Thursday that the district has made progress reducing some absences but continues to face persistent chronic absenteeism and related family needs.

The supervisors told the committee that overall district absenteeism has declined about 12% over roughly the last two-and-a-half years, but that pockets of high truancy remain; the supervisors said about 1,000 students are chronically absent and that some programs and specific cohorts show much higher rates.

The report described the supervisors' daily outreach: staff perform wellness checks when students miss consecutive days, coordinate with the Department of Children and Families and juvenile court and probation when appropriate, and work with community partners such as Catholic Charities and the local youth center to connect families with food, clothing and other services. A supervisor said, "We're just there to help the families," and emphasized that many absences are driven by crises such as homelessness, travel or family moves.

Supervisors said they track each contact in a data spreadsheet (for example, logging home visits and wellness checks with dates and addresses) and meet monthly with guidance staff at each school to review students with high absence rates. They described a tiered intervention protocol schools use: tier 1 through tier 3 increases levels of service and outreach. Supervisors also said they receive direct referrals from principals and assistant principals when students miss multiple consecutive days.

Committee members asked for more disaggregated data. One member asked for absenteeism trends by grade and school; supervisors said they can break the data down by grade and by school and noted kindergarten absenteeism had increased about 7% compared with this time last year. The supervisors identified two student groups they can affect most directly — roughly ages 6 to 16 — and noted limits for older students, where the court system provides fewer enforcement tools.

The supervisors described patterns the committee should know: several families from Ecuador and Brazil left midyear after the winter break, producing sudden enrollment changes; some students remain on Milford's rolls while their families enroll them in other districts because the transfer paperwork is delayed. Supervisors said they have established better, faster communication channels with DCF and the juvenile court, and that those relationships have reduced response times for some cases.

Committee members requested additional reports: supervisors agreed to provide grade-by-grade and school-by-school absentee trends and to share the case-tracking data in formats the committee can review. The committee also asked supervisors to include information on breakfast participation and whether families know meals are available; supervisors said breakfast participation has increased since universal access began and that they believe breakfast is a draw for some students.

The committee did not take formal action during the update but scheduled follow-up reporting and requested staff-forwarded data before the next meeting.