Paper Mill Elementary Principal Michael Atkins spoke to the School Committee on Nov. 17 about his school’s strategies to improve attendance and keep students excited to come to school.
Photo credit: Westfield Community TV
WESTFIELD — Westfield Superintendent Stefan Czaporowski and Christopher Rogers, director of operations and safety, spoke with Reminder Publishing on Nov. 21 about the district’s focus on improving attendance and decreasing chronic absenteeism, saying they had good data to report.
On Nov. 17, the attendance task force headed by Rogers met to celebrate what he called small victories in district attendance from last year at this time.
He said the district has had nice gains in student attendance as a whole from mid-November 2024 to mid-November 2025, nearly reaching the district-wide goal of 95% attendance in grades 1-12, achieving a rate of 94.7%.
Rogers said they have also seen decreases in chronic absenteeism, students missing 10% of school, which are students who had missed five days of school or more by mid-November.
He said last year at this time, mid-November, they had 15.4% of students that were chronically absent. As of Nov. 14 of this year, that number has dipped down to 12.9%. “That’s good news — we’re heading in the right direction by almost 2.5%,” he said.
Rogers said the two sets of data are separate. The average daily attendance rate only tells the percentage of kids who are there, it doesn’t tell you about the kids that aren’t there. He said he runs a separate report multiple times a month that shows the kids who have been chronically absent 10% of the time, or who are approaching chronic absenteeism, to reveal which individuals need intervention and support.
“We’ve really focused on student attendance this year and developing strategies. Our goal was to decrease overall chronic absenteeism by 1.9%,” Czaporowski said, adding, “We are getting back to pre-COVID numbers.”
Asked whether they think the focus on absenteeism is making the difference, they both said yes. “Even at the school sites, we’re talking about attendance,” Czaporowski said. He said the schools are encouraging families to send students to school, using interventions such as calling home and home visits for chronic absences, and offering incentives and competitions, such as fourth graders competing for the class with the best attendance per month.
Rogers said they are also paying particular attention to English language learners and students in special education.
“Our overall attendance is better, including our subgroups,” he said.
Czaporowski said attendance highlights across the district include Westfield Technical Academy, which as of Nov. 14 was at a 96.4% attendance rate, and Munger Hill Elementary at 96.1%. “Almost everybody else at the elementary level is at 95% or higher,” he said.
At a meeting on Nov 17, Principal Michael Atkins of Paper Mill Elementary spoke to the School Committee about the focus on improving attendance and decreasing the chronic absenteeism rate at his school.
Atkins said when students miss school, they are missing instructions, services, social interactions, breakfasts and routines.
He said at Paper Mill, one of his favorite parts of the day is to be able to greet students every single day, starting with the bus, when they walk into the building, throughout the building and in their classes. “By the time they enter their classes, they have met ten smiling faces,” Atkins said.
At the end of each month, administrators visit every classroom, and every student that has 95% or better attendance that month gets a star with their name on it, and a group photo is posted in the lobby. Atkins said they also send a thank you home to families for their commitment.
Atkins also talked about the many different ways they keep students excited to go to school through positive behavior incentive programs.
“We know that for students that come regularly to school; socially, emotionally and academically, their potential for growth increases exponentially. Every day you miss school, you’re missing direct instruction,” Czaporowski said, giving the example of a Project Lead the Way group project, which is hard to make up.
“We have great numbers now, but it could be a tough flu season, or a form of COVID could come back. It’s important to recognize where we are today. It’s a team effort with families. We want to make sure we’re eliminating any barriers for school attendance,” Czaporowski said.
Rogers said this is an ongoing focus for the district. “When we look at a spreadsheet, we’re looking at just numbers. The real work is being done with school staff and families. Every student matters — every student and family has a story. Our job is to work with them to promote regular attendance.”
Another highlight they pointed to was the improvement in the chronic absenteeism at Westfield High School, which has shown a 5% improvement over last year, from a rate of 23% at the end of last year to 18% this year. Twenty three percent is the national average for chronic absenteeism.
“We know high schools across the country have the highest chronic absenteeism rate. High school needs to evolve to meet the needs of our kids today.” Czaporowski said the district has been working towards that aim with early college, internships and career pathways — making what students are learning now relevant for the future.
“What we’re anticipating and expect to see are increases in achievement on local assessments,” Czaporowski said, adding that the district is about to do local mid-year assessments, i-Ready for middle and intermediate schools and IXL for high schools. “Any student that attends school regularly will perform better academically than if they don’t.”
“The more that we build the foundation of the house, getting students there regularly, based on the professional powerful relationships that we build, makes the whole organization healthier,” Rogers said, adding they anticipate seeing not only an improvement in academics, but a reduction in behavioral referrals.
“For us, these are constant goals that are never going to go away,” Czaporowski said.
