Chelsea district reports lower enrollment, attendance patterns and student course-taking trends

At a Chelsea School Committee meeting, Assistant Superintendent Tamara Blake Canty presented monthly indicators of success for the district, reporting on attendance, course-taking, early college participation, dropout and mobility figures and failing grades at Chelsea High School.

Canty said kindergarten through grade 5 daily attendance for the month and year-to-date was ‘‘generally in the ninetieth to 94th percentile,’’ middle-school (grades 6–8) attendance held around 92%–94%, grade 9 was the lowest-attending grade, and grades 10–12 held at about 82% year to date. She reported a district total attendance rate of 87% for the period under review, compared with 88% the previous year, and called out a roughly 2 percentage-point drop in February that affected the year-to-date figure.

On rigorous and culturally relevant instruction, Canty said the number of eighth graders enrolled in Algebra I rose from 73 at the start of the year to 81 at the end, an increase of eight students. She reported 384 students enrolled in AP courses…