Middletown board hears plan to reduce chronic absenteeism from 25% to 18% this year
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Summary
District officials described data‑driven attendance strategies — home visits, family liaisons, LEAP grant work and Alliance funds — and set an 18% year‑end target for chronic absenteeism.
Middletown school officials presented a districtwide attendance strategy on Oct. 14 and set a target to reduce chronic absenteeism from 25 percent to 18 percent by the end of the school year.
Dawn Dube, supervisor of early childhood and family/community engagement, told the board the district had recorded a small increase in overall daily attendance so far this year and detailed a multi‑pronged approach that includes school‑based attendance teams, family engagement liaisons, participation in the Connecticut Family School Partnership and use of LEAP grant resources.
Dube said the district is focusing on root causes — transportation, family resources, school climate and feelings of belonging — and increasing home‑visit outreach in neighborhoods identified by attendance “heat maps.” She described coordinated work with family engagement liaisons to visit households, connect families with supports and encourage school participation.
The district’s plan includes weekly and biweekly data reviews at the school and district level, coordinated notification strategies for families and targeted interventions for students at‑risk of becoming chronically absent. Officials said Bealfield Elementary had used a half‑day “dance party” incentive to raise attendance to 96 percent on a recent half day — about 10 percentage points higher than the prior comparable day — and the district will document and share effective practices.
Superintendent Dr. Vasquez Matos and assistant staff said part of the strategy is increased consistency at the high school around period attendance. School staff are conducting hallway sweeps and other tactics to ensure students are in class rather than in untracked hallways; staff said that practice contributed to more accurate attendance counts and improved instructional time during the school day.
The district also intends to use a portion of Alliance grant funds to support school‑level attendance initiatives, including family events, incentives and outreach. Dawn Dube said district teams will continue to analyze grade‑level and subgroup attendance patterns and to refine strategies by school.
Board members asked for more disaggregated grade‑level data and for updates on the impact of the new practices. District staff said they would provide grade‑level breakdowns and ongoing status updates to the board.
