GREENFIELD — Students in Greenfield’s public schools are missing more school days on average than their peers across the state, according to the 2021 Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) district report card.
The annual report card is reflective of 18 months of interrupted learning time, 10 months of which were spent in remote learning, noted Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Karin Patenaude in her update to the School Committee last week.
“It’s not really as if you’re comparing apples to apples in the yearly reflection,” she emphasized.
Among the highlights in the report card, she said, is that advanced level coursework is “just below” the state average, and 92.9% of students have access to the arts, compared to the statewide average of 77.5% of students.
Additionally, the Greenfield School Department’s graduation rate is at or above the state average, as is the percentage of students who pursue post-secondary education.
That said, there were also a few significant areas of need noted in the report card, Patenaude relayed to the School Committee. In particular, she spoke to the issue of attendance.
According to the data provided in the report, students missed an average of 16.4 days per school year in 2021 compared to the state average of 10.6 days.
“That’s an area we’re going to be focusing on as an administrative team,” Patenaude said.
School Committee member Glenn Johnson-Mussad asked Patenaude if there are known practices for improving student attendance rates.
“DESE has a 10-page manual, because it’s not simply a Greenfield thing,” Patenaude responded. “The pandemic has affected school attendance across the state.”
She added that a large element of the approach to the issue will be “very individualistic” in terms of finding ways to engage students as well as alternatives for what may be inhibiting students from not attending school.
“If you can at least get the student in front of you and have accessibility to learning, you’re on a good track,” she said. “That’s part of the battle — getting them into the building and learning.”
School Committee member Kate Martini asked if the attendance data for this report card was, at all, a reflection on pandemic-related policies.
“With COVID policies in place, we’ve certainly had a higher level of absenteeism than we might typically, because we’re actually instructing people to stay home (when sick),” explained Superintendent Christine DeBarge. “I think the bigger piece for us is … to look at students individually and determine if the absences were primarily medical-based, or if other factors were influencing it.”
School Committee member Susan Eckstrom said she wasn’t particularly surprised by the data in the report.
“We have, traditionally, had attendance issues at the schools for a number of reasons,” she said.
According to the report, by comparison, students missed an average of 7.1 days in 2020, and 11.7 days in 2019 — both of which are slightly above the state averages.
Gaps in the curriculum for grades three through eight were also highlighted in the report, though Patenaude noted she has been working on the math and English language arts curriculums, looking to invest in “high-quality” instructional materials.
“If there was ever data supporting the need for adopting and implementing, and supporting budgetarily over the course of the years, for quality instructional materials,” she said, “those two pieces of data really reflected that.”
DESE’s complete school district report card can be accessed online at reportcards.doe.mass.edu/. Report cards for individual schools are available as well.
Reporter Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne