Bangor is trying to get absent kids back to class

Two years after the COVID-19 pandemic forced students to remain at home, Bangor schools, like others across the state and country, are still struggling to convince students to return to the classroom.

In response Bangor principals are trying to strengthen students’ connection to their schools, in some instances pairing every adult in their school, including custodians and secretaries, with kids to mentor them.

The stakes are significant, as students who are chronically absent are more likely to drop out of school when they’re older.

In the two years since schools have resumed in-person instruction, rates of chronic absenteeism have remained high. In Maine, about 27 percent of all students were considered chronically absent last year, a decrease from 31 percent the previous year, according to data collected by the Maine Department of Education.

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In Bangor, the number of chronically absent students rose. About one out of every four students — or 25.5 percent — were considered chronically absent last year. It was an increase from 2022 when about 22.6 percent of Bangor’s students were considered chronically absent, according to state data.

Students are considered chronically absent when they have missed 10 percent of a school year, which is generally equal to about 18 school days, or two days per month during the school year. They’re considered chronically absent regardless of whether the absences are excused, unlike truancy. Maine law considers students truant if they miss multiple days of school in a row for no excusable reason.

Ryan Enman, the principal of the Fairmount School in Bangor, which serves grades four and five, remembers about a decade ago when students who attended schools on the west side of Bangor consistently struggled to show up for school regularly. Now, after the pandemic, it is a problem across the entire city.

“Chronic absenteeism is something we’ve been working on for a long time,” Enman said. “Pre-COVID, I think it was a little less daunting, but now the numbers [of students] creeping into that category are overwhelming.”

As the number of chronically absent students persists in Bangor, the school department is focusing on establishing better, more meaningful relationships with its students.

“We’re not asking them why they weren’t here yesterday. Instead we say, ‘I’m so glad you’re here today. Do you want to have lunch?’” said Joanne McDade, a fifth-grade teacher at the Fairmount School. “I think that shift is important.”

‘We’re still making up gaps in education’

Students were required to be at home during the pandemic, causing them to miss at least a year of socialization critical to their development, said Courtney Angelosante, an expert in student behavior at the University of Maine’s College of Education and Human Development.

“We lost a year, and that’s showing up clearly in terms of how they resolve conflict, how they engage with each other,” Angelosante said. “Kids who were already at risk went over a year without intervention. I think our kids coming into school had no early intervention, no reciprocal play or parallel play, no exposure to other kids. This has created a different dynamic in schools.”

As education has returned to mostly what it looked like before the pandemic, school seems to feel more optional to some, Enman said.

Parents are more likely to not provide a reason for their child’s absence, which means the absence can’t be excused, all at a time when being in the classroom is critical to recovering after the pandemic, said Debra Swett, principal of the Vine Street School, which serves prekindergarten through third grade.

“As educators, we see the difference with the time that they’ve missed and what they’ve learned, and their accomplishments,” she said. “We’re still making up gaps in education.”

There are many reasons why students may become chronically absent, Enman said. Some children may not have a ride if they miss the bus. Others may have a chronic illness or are struggling with issues in their home lives.

Studies have shown that those who are chronically absent are more likely to perform worse academically and that young children who are chronically absent are more likely to later drop out of school.

Generally, students at higher grade levels are more chronically absent, Angelosante said, and that pattern is reflected in Bangor.

About 43 percent of older students in Bangor schools were considered chronically absent last year, while 24.5 percent of the district’s elementary students were chronically absent.

Early intervention is key because students naturally are given more choices as they get older, Enman said. So the school department focuses on instilling the importance of school at an early age.

‘It’s about wanting them to be here’

Chronic absenteeism is present across all Bangor schools, but for years now three schools on the west side — Vine Street, Fairmount and James F. Doughty — have been leading the district’s efforts to curb the number of absent students.

To do that, the schools focus on building lasting relationships, so kids feel like they belong, said McDade, of the Fairmount School.

“We spend a lot of time trying to make relationships with kids in our mentoring program and not so much beating all the time about attendance. Rather it’s about wanting them to be here,” McDade said.

To build meaningful relationships between students and adults at school, different types of mentorship happen daily , and the interactions are individual to each student, the principals of the schools said.

“We’re really all hands on deck. Our custodian mentors quite a few kids. Our secretary meets with some of them, all our teachers, ed techs, specialists — everyone,” said Swett, of Vine Street School. “It’s all about relationships.”

Swett and James F. Doughty School Principal Samuel Moring also developed an afterschool program that recently concluded for the year where students from Doughty — one of Bangor’s two middle schools — would go to the Vine Street School to interact with the younger students, Swett said.

In that program, middle school students were helping the younger kids from Vine Street with homework. They would also read to each other, she said. For the second half of the program, they all just played together.

At the Fairmount School, students have classroom mentors. In McDade’s classroom, students are mentored by a janitor and the school’s social worker, she said, and talk to kids with McDade about the basics of social and emotional well-being.

Students in McDade’s class recently focused their mentoring time on self-confidence, she said.

“I was saying to them, ‘We all have those voices that tell us we can’t do it, that tell us those negative thoughts,’” McDade said. “One of my students said his thought was that he wasn’t enough. He said, ‘I’m not enough.’ And it just blew me away.”

From there, McDade built lessons around positive self-talk for her class to reinforce a feeling of safety and belonging in her classroom, she said.

At the Doughty school, every adult has at least one student they mentor in a less structured program, Moring said. High school students also often meet with groups of sixth-grade students, he said.

While building strong, lasting relationships is key to efforts to get students invested in their education, all Bangor schools also offer incentives to kids in hopes of reaching a district-wide goal of a 95 percent student attendance rate.

Doughty held a schoolwide ice cream party when it met its first-quarter attendance goal, Moring said. To recognize individual success, the school has also held drawings for Bangor High School sweatshirts, he said.

Students who meet attendance goals at Vine Street are awarded special pencils and certificates, Swett said.

And at the Fairmount School, individual classes that hit the goal are rewarded with a choice between an extra recess or an extra physical education class, something the kids love, Enman said.

What’s clear to educators in the Bangor School Department is that there isn’t a single solution to getting kids back in school, McDade said.

“There’s no magic wand. It’s one-on-one communication of, ‘How are we going to make you want to come to school every day and see that you’re going to feel good?’” she said. “‘Because when you’re here, you’re successful and that feels good.’”

Sawyer Loftus is an investigative reporter at the Bangor Daily News. He may be reached at sloftus@bangordailynews.com.