PARIS — Saying attendance matters, school officials in Maine School Administrative District 17 have set a goal to improve average daily attendance numbers from 93% to 95% for the 2025-26 school year.

One way of doing that is to address the problem of chronic absenteeism. Roughly 30% of those absent are classified as chronically absent, according to school data, which means missing at least 10% or 18 days during the school year.

Board members at last week’s MSAD 17 meeting wondered why more is not being done to address the problem.

Each school in the district has an attendance team working on the problem. Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School Principal Paul Bickford shared what is being done at his school to get students to class.

“From a high school perspective, we have one person who is really working with the absent students making home visits,” Bickford said. “We have other people doing home visits weekly, calling in community support because a lot of this deals with mental health issues. It’s a long hard process, but things are happening.”

MSAD 17 includes the towns of Harrison, Hebron, Norway, Otisfield, Oxford, Paris, Waterford and West Paris.

The board also heard reports from school officials assessing how the past school year went. Reports covered items like graduation rates and test scores. A group of administrators and staff studied the data to determine the end-of-year assessment. Items they considered included what is working well, what challenges exist and what improvements are needed.

Test scores from the Star assessments, which measure proficiency, dropped this past year in both English and math. The school district has used the Star tests for several years to get a good grasp on trends affecting learning. In contrast, Jill Bartash, the curriculum director for the district, said the state has used four different tests over the past 10 years to measure test scores.

Getting some students to buy into the assessment tests is a problem since the scores are not used for graduation, Bickford and others said.

Bartash said the graduation rate dropped to 82.9% in 2024, compared to 87.8% statewide. She said 2025 figures were not available yet.

She noted that test scores are still rebounding from the COVID-19 pandemic. The district closed schools in March 2020. For the 2020-21 school year, students returned to class with remote learning, intermittent closures and quarantines. Students then returned to school the next year with quarantines. Everything returned to normal the past three years.

Estimates indicate that students are behind in learning by approximately two-thirds of a year to a full year. Officials said it could take several more years to rebound from that level.

‘We have a board right now that is very supportive,” said Chairman Troy Ripley. “There is nobody calling for a 50% budget cut and teacher elimination. The board will support you guys. Don’t be afraid to ask. Don’t try to save the world by yourself. If you need it, say it.”