As the Gill-Montague Regional School District continues in its “Every Student, Every Day, Everyone Belongs”, school attendance and community building campaign, it was very disheartening to see the report and hear the news that school administrators were somehow identified as missing 32.1 days or maintaining a 86.7% attendance rate. How can the district promote the value of consistent school attendance for students and staff if the administrators are not maintaining this standard? Through quick investigation, it turns out there was a reporting error!
In reality, the administrators in the Gill-Montague Schools, for sick time leave, maintained a daily attendance range falling between 93% to 98% with total number of sick days used ranging from 16.5 on the highest end to 2 days total on the lowest end. The average attendance rate for administrators is 96%. This raises the question of how such a mistake could have been made? As it turns out this is the first year of this Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) reporting requirement and there was a misunderstanding on what specific leave time was to be calculated in the total. As school administrative contracts are typically year round, and include specified vacation, personal days, and even bereavement days, the numbers reported were skewed to reflect all contract days rather than simply sick days. If you are wondering where your Gill-Montague administrators are, you are welcome to visit us at the schools each day. We will be here welcoming students, collaborating with teachers, educators, and families, and promoting high expectations for learning and growing together.
Work Cited
“2025 Staff Attendance Report (District).” School and District Profiles, 18 November 2025, https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/statereport/staffattendance.aspx. Accessed 20 November 2025.