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Nick Conor urges lawmakers to shift H.930 from punishment to partnership on chronic absenteeism
Summary
At a Senate Education Committee hearing, Nick Conor, director of student engagement data, testified that Vermont’s H.930 risks criminalizing poverty and urged removing rigid 'excused/unexcused' lists, replacing 'truancy officer' language with engagement roles, and using chronic-absence rates as the accountability metric.
Nick Conor, director of student engagement data for Monty Rock public schools and a senior fellow with Attendance Works, told the Senate Education Committee on April 15 that House Bill H.930 should be reworked to focus on lost instructional time and family supports rather than punishment.
Conor opened his testimony with a home-visit anecdote about a first grader he identified as "Sarah" whose single mother walked nearly a mile with multiple small children to get them to school. The story, he said, illustrated how barriers such as transportation and poverty—not parental indifference—often drive absenteeism.
"When we look at the bill as it's written now we are codifying multiple reasons that leave," Conor said, adding that lengthy statutory…
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