Most of the 11 public school districts and supervisory unions in Franklin County saw students in class a little more often in the 2025-26 school year than the year before.
According to data from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, only two local districts, Hawlemont and Ralph C. Mahar, saw attendance rates drop. However, the changes were minor, and all 11 public school districts and supervisory unions are within two percentage points of the state average attendance rate of 93.6%.
The data also highlights rates of chronic absenteeism. For a student to be considered chronically absent, they must miss more than 10% of school days. For a traditional 180-day school year, that equates to 18 days of school. Statewide, the average rate of chronically absent students is 17.1%. A narrow majority of local school districts have worse rates of chronic absenteeism than the state average, but show improvement from 2025-26.
The Pioneer Valley Regional School District had the highest attendance rate for the 2025-26 school year, while the Ralph C. Mahar School District had the largest decrease in attendance and the lowest rate.
Frontier Regional and Union 38 school districts
Frontier Regional School District saw minor attendance improvements in the 2025-26 school year, with a rate of 93.6%.
“If you look at attendance over time, we’re trending in the right direction,” Superintendent Darius Modestow said. “Overall, in our district, we’re seeing students being in a healthier place.”
Over the past 10 years Frontier’s attendance levels have been relatively stable. The district saw a high of 95.2% in the 2020-21 school year and a low of 92.1% in 2021-22. Frontier has also seen rates of chronic absenteeism continue to drop; however, it has yet to reach pre-pandemic levels.
In the 2019-20 school year, 10.6% of Frontier students were considered chronically absent; in the 2021-22 school year, that rate reached a high of 26.2%. For the past academic year, the chronic absenteeism rate decreased to 14.4%.
The elementary schools in Union 38 saw minor changes in attendance between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years, with rates rising at Conway Grammar School and Whately Elementary School, and dropping at the Deerfield and Sunderland elementary schools.
This year, Sunderland Elementary launched “Every Day Counts at Sunderland,” a new attendance initiative. By working with families, it aims to break down roadblocks students face for attending school every day, Principal Benjamin Barshefsky said.
Instead of sweeping attendance initiatives at Frontier, Modestow said the district has turned its attention to individual students who consistently miss school.
“Our priority has been identifying students who aren’t at school consistently and trying to understand why,” Modestow said. “There are a large variety of challenges that students face to get to school.”
As examples, he mentioned transportation issues and parents struggling to get their children ready for the day and out the door in time after working long hours. While a family’s socioeconomic background can contribute to attendance barriers, Modestow added that students have missed strings of school days for trips.
“Those days add up,” Modestow said. “If we go up or down a little bit each year, in some of those smaller schools, it could be a few families.”
Gill-Montague Regional School District
Director of Teaching and Learning Karin Patenaude told the Gill-Montague Regional School District School Committee on Oct. 13 that the district saw a slight improvement in attendance during the 2025-26 school year.
Last school year, the district saw an attendance rate of 93.3%, up from the 2024-25 school year. Patenaude said attendance has been steadily increasing over the past few years, since it hit a low during the 2021-22 school year amid the pandemic.
“We have improved. We obviously can’t improve in student achievement if they’re not sitting in front of us, so attendance is critical to what we do,” Patenaude said. “Post-COVID, we were really struggling to get some of our kiddos back into school, but we have increased those numbers, and our latest numbers are certainly much better than they were in 2021.”
During the 2025-26 school year, students on average missed 11.8 days, compared to the average of 12.7 days in 2024-25. The percentage of students considered chronically absent was 19.8% in 2025-26, an improvement from the year before, during which 22.2% were chronically absent.
“If you think about a 180-day school year, that’s a lot,” Patenaude said, referencing the chronic absenteeism threshold of missing 10% of schools days. “It really impacts the learning and having the ability to be in front of a highly qualified teacher and get that instruction.”
Patenaude said that while the improvements the district is seeing are worth celebrating, attendance will be a continued focus moving forward, particularly among students with disabilities. According to DESE data, 32.5% of Gill-Montague students with disabilities were chronically absent during the 2024-25 school year. For the 2025-26 school year, the district was able to reduce that rate to 29.2%.
As part of the district’s goals for the current academic year, Patenaude said counselors have been undergoing professional development on addressing attendance.
“We certainly do not want almost 30% of our students with disabilities being chronically absent,” Patenaude said. “We still have a lot of work to do there.”
Greenfield
Greenfield saw a slight increase in attendance during the 2025-26 school year, with an attendance rate of 92.2%, but did see a larger decrease in students considered chronically absent. Assistant Superintendent of Teaching & Learning Stephen Sullivan said the improvements are “worthy of celebration,” but that “there’s still significant work to do.”
In the 2025-26 school year, 24.8% of Greenfield students were considered chronically absent, a rate that has been improving in recent years. During the 2017-18 school year, chronic absenteeism was at 18.6%, a rate that rose until reaching a peak of 45.1% during the 2021-22 academic year. Since then, the rate has been improving; however, Sullivan said attendance will remain high on the district’s list of goals.
To address the problem, the school district plans to continue looking at communication, policies and procedures.
“When it comes to attendance, it’s always a multi-pronged approach,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan explained that the district has been working to explain to students and families “the power of [their] presence” and how missing instruction time can impact students’ learning not only in core subjects, but in other areas where students may be receiving assistance, such as working with a speech-language pathologist.
He added that each school holds weekly attendance meetings, and when needed, the schools will do home visits and chat with families to address any issues they may be having with getting a student to class, such as transportation.
Hawlemont Regional School District
Hawlemont Regional School District students missed just a bit more school in the 2025-26 school year than they did the year prior. In 2025-26, the school had an attendance rate of 93.5%, compared to 94.1% in 2024-25. Students missed an average of 10.9 days of school during the last academic year.
Hawlemont has seen attendance rates fluctuate within a few percentage points over the past 10 years, with low points in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years.
“I find attendance to be a balancing act. We want to make sure families and children are staying home when sick, limiting contagion and recovering,” Hawlemont Principal Amber Tulloch said. “We also want to ensure children are present whenever possible. We’ve used a monthly class attendance award for the last two years, [which is] a strong motivator for students while providing grace for illnesses and absences.”
Tulloch added that the Parent-Teacher Organization plays a role in this monthly attendance award, sponsoring the initiative with class prizes.
“Part of the responsibility in a small school, in a small community, is really coming together as a village to support our students and families,” Tulloch said.
Ralph C. Mahar Regional School District
Mahar saw a drop in attendance and a rise in chronic absenteeism. During the 2025-26 school year, Mahar had an attendance rate of 91.7%, a slight decrease from the 92.7% observed in the 2024-25 academic year.
Students at Mahar missed an average of 14.4 days. In the 2025-26 school year, Mahar’s chronic absenteeism rate was 26.7%, a significant increase from the year before. During the 2024-25 school year, chronic absenteeism was at a rate of 17.7%.
These rates are higher than the levels of chronic absenteeism Mahar saw before the pandemic. In the 2017-18 school year, chronic absenteeism was at a rate of 9.1%, which soared to 61.1% in the 2020-21 school year.
“Chronic absenteeism continues to be an area of concern at Mahar Regional School, as we recognize the direct relationship between consistent attendance, academic achievement and student success. While there are many factors that contribute to student absences, our focus is on understanding and addressing the barriers that prevent students from attending school regularly,” Superintendent Elizabeth Zielinski said. “We are working collaboratively with students, families, teachers and support staff to identify those challenges and provide appropriate interventions. Our goal is not simply to improve an attendance statistic, but to ensure that every student feels connected to school, engaged in learning and supported in their educational journey.
“Improving attendance requires a shared commitment between schools, families and the community,” she added. “We will continue to monitor our progress and strengthen our efforts to ensure that students are present, engaged and positioned for success.”
Mohawk Trail Regional School District
Not much has changed in attendance rates within the Mohawk Trail Regional School District. From 2024-25 to 2025-26, the attendance rate rose marginally from 93.2% to 93.4%. Chronic absenteeism rose from 18% to 18.5%. Mohawk Trail is narrowly behind the state average attendance rate and slightly more of its students are chronically absent.
Superintendent Sheryl Stanton said that in a small district like Mohawk Trail, a handful of students can severely impact the overall rates of attendance.
“We always, as a small district, are discussing with DESE how one or two students can really change our status,” Stanton said.
“If a student … needs to be out on a long-term medical leave, that isn’t something that we can control,” Stanton added. “That isn’t a trend. … So, that’s what we look at when we look at the data.”
Pioneer Valley Regional School District
Pioneer Superintendent Patricia Kinsella was proud to say her students had the best attendance in the county for the 2025-26 academic year, with a rate of 95.1%. The attendance rate is also higher than the state average and represents an increase over the previous year’s attendance rate.
“It’s a success story for this little district,” Kinsella said.
Kinsella said school principals focused on meeting with teachers about attendance and finding ways to intervene before students are considered chronically absent. She explained that the district has found that for high schoolers who are chronically absent, many of their attendance issues date back to elementary school. Reaching students and families at the younger level and addressing any challenges they face around attendance can improve attendance as they get older.
In addition to ongoing review of policies and practices, paired with early intervention, Kinsella said the district has made an effort to promote a positive school culture. Investments in athletics, arts and other extracurriculars result in engaged students who want to be at school, she said.
Moving forward, Kinsella the district is going to continue these efforts, particularly in reaching students who are chronically absent. In the 2025-26 school year, 11.8% of Pioneer students were chronically absent, a slight improvement from the year prior.
“When kids aren’t in school, they don’t achieve as well,” Kinsella said. “I want 0% of our students to be chronically absent.”
Franklin County Technical School
A boon for attendance rates at Franklin Tech is the enjoyment students find from their shop classes, according to Principal Brian Spadafino. For the 2025-26 school year, the district had a 94.8% attendance rate, which is roughly the same as the previous school year’s rate of exactly 94%.
Additionally, chronic absenteeism declined from 2024-25, meaning more students are in class more frequently. With a rate of 10.7% this year, the school is performing better than the state average for chronic absenteeism.
Spadafino highlighted that attendance is the greatest indicator of student success. To help keep students on track, parent and student meetings are held to address incidences of chronic absenteeism.
Rowe Elementary School
Rowe students were in school an average of three days more last academic year than they were the prior year. During the 2025-26 school year, the school had an attendance rate of 93.4%, with students missing an average of 11.7 days. In 2024-25, the attendance rate was 91.5%, with students missing an average of 14.7 days.
The school remains just under the state average for attendance and has seen it fluctuate, with a slight upward trend over the past few years. The school has also seen significant improvement in its chronic absenteeism rates. In the 2025-26 year, 8.8% of students were considered chronically absent; the year prior, that rate was 27.1%.
Union 28 (Erving, Leverett, New Salem, Wendell and Shutesbury)
Within Erving School Union 28, chronic absenteeism rates for the four elementary schools — Erving, Leverett, Shutesbury and Swift River — saw improvement from the 2024-25 data.
For Swift River, Leverett and Shutesbury, the attendance rates saw marginal increases, with the largest improvement being at Swift River, which saw an attendance rate of 94.6% for 2025-26. In Erving, the school saw a small decline in attendance from the previous school year, but with a rate of 93.6%, it is an exact match to the state average.
All Union 28 schools saw their rates of chronic absenteeism drop, meaning more children were back in the classroom.
Swift River School saw the largest decline in chronically absent students, dropping from 18.2% from the 2024-25 school year to 11.3% this last academic year. However, Erving Elementary is the only school in the supervisory union that is still above the state average in chronic absenteeism, sitting at 20.8% for 2025-26.
Warwick Community School
Warwick’s average attendance rate, while below the state average, rose in this latest round of data. Clocking in at 89% for the 2024-25 school year, the average attendance rate rose to 92.6% in 2025-26. The biggest drop was seen in the percentage of chronically absent students, which fell from 53.1% to 24.1%. However, this is still 7% higher than the state average of 17.1%.
Warwick Community School Principal Stephen Stroud credits this change to staffing changes. In particular, the school created the family liaison position, which Stroud said has made a notable difference.
“We built a dashboard to help us monitor who needed to be contacted and our family liaison did a really great job of being a safe person to provide resources and guidance to families who had systemic barriers to getting their kids to school,” Stroud said.
Stroud said the administrative team made a concerted effort to look at the attendance data and see where improvements could be made. He said school leadership met regularly to identify students that the family liaison should connect with. After initial identification, the leadership team continued meeting, analyzing how the efforts were going.
“We also added other layers to that,” Stroud said. “We do student-led family conferences twice a year and we brought attendance right into the fabric of those conferences. It wasn’t just the family liaison that was having conversations with families, but it was the classroom teachers as well.”
