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Office of Student Support outlines registration fixes, attendance plan and counselor staffing needs
Summary
Interim Director Ace Thompson told the committee the district registered 669 students this year via 12 different secretaries and faces 11% chronic absenteeism; an attendance task force recommends standardized communications, MTSS triggers and a PowerSchool plugin; counseling staff levels have increased but caseloads vary by school.
Interim Director of Student Services Ace Thompson presented an Office of Student Support update to the committee on Jan. 12, detailing planned changes to registration, an attendance intervention strategy and staffing considerations for social-emotional supports.
Thompson said the district registered 669 students this school year and noted that 12 different secretaries across buildings led registrations, producing inconsistent results and follow-up work in central office. "Any time you have 12 people doing the same thing, you find inconsistencies," he said, and described work to produce a standardized checklist and form for building secretaries to ensure custody, IEPs and language surveys are captured at enrollment.
On attendance, Thompson said about 11% of district students meet the state's definition of chronic absenteeism (missing 10% or more of the school year). He said high-needs students — including English learners, low-income students and students with disabilities — are about twice as likely to be chronically absent. An attendance task force performed a root-cause analysis, found variations in timing and wording of school communications and recommended specific communication triggers, clearer MTSS referral thresholds and use of the Panorama tool to track progress.
"When students meet the criteria that the attendance task force has set out, administration will be alerted," Thompson said, describing an upcoming PowerSchool plugin that will auto-format standard letters and prompt administration to refer students to MTSS when appropriate.
Thompson also reviewed counseling staffing and caseloads. Over four years, elementary school adjustment counselor positions increased from 3 to 8.4 and k–8 counselors doubled; middle-school counselor staffing also rose, although the high school has fewer counselors because enrollment has dropped. He compared district caseloads against the American School Counselor Association's 250:1 recommendation and highlighted schools where actual caseloads exceeded recommendations, noting TLC and STEP program placements complicate direct comparisons.
Committee members asked how district programs (TLC, STEP) were counted in caseloads and whether the PowerSchool plugin would allow parent absence reporting; Thompson said the plugin is currently planned as a back-end administrative tool, though integration with parent portals is possible. Dr. Riley and Thompson said staffing ratios, program counting and targeted resource allocation would be topics for the upcoming budget retreat.
Thompson encouraged members to contact the Office of Student Support with questions and highlighted an upcoming Massachusetts Partnership for Youth virtual session on chronic absenteeism.
