After a successful graduation ceremony Saturday, Altoona Area School District administrators acknowledged the district’s growth during the 2024-25 school year at a committee of the whole school board meeting Monday.

During the meeting, Superintendent Brad Hatch, along with Haley Fleege, assistant superintendent of curriculum, instruction and elementary programs, and Mark Harrington, assistant superintendent of secondary education, provided updates about the goals they set to achieve at the beginning of the school year.

Across the district, Hatch said administrators have focused much of their efforts on trying to reduce the number of chronically absent students — people who miss 18 or more days of school — by 10%.

Chronically absent students include those who missed school days due to family trips, medically excused absences and disciplinary actions, Hatch said, noting it includes, but is not limited to, truant students.

Altoona Area had varying success at its elementary school buildings, with three school buildings able to reach that target, according to Fleegle, who said some schools were able to reduce their rates by as much as 35%.

Fleegle said school officials stressed the importance of attendance with parents at kindergarten registration this year. The hope is that it will continue to reduce truancy rates next year.

“We’re hoping that that makes a positive impact as we start to work with our families on … why it’s so important to be here,” Fleegle said.

Hatch said students react to concrete awards and privileges — being able to see a movie, attend an assembly or pick a prize out of a box — at all levels.

“Believe it or not, even those kinds of tokens matter to kids at the junior high and high school. Those kinds of things matter,” Hatch said.

According to Harrington, at the junior high school, 438 students were chronically absent during the 2023-24 school year. That number dropped 18% to 358 students during the 2024-25 school year, he said, noting there were “friendly competitions” among grade levels to see who could have the best attendance on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

At the high school, the number of chronically absent students dropped from 664 to 444, Harrington said, noting that figure includes both in-person attendees and students in the Altoona Cyber Academy.

Digging deeper into the numbers, Harrington said the high school’s rate of chronically absent students dropped 10% from 574 to 513.

Fleegle and Harrington also recognized efforts made to improve literacy goals within the district. Special education department Director Michele Sanders also read testimonies of growth from students, teachers and parents to the board about Altoona Area’s special education programs.

Hatch said district officials had a “very successful year” and will continue to work toward long-term and sustainable goals for student achievement.

“We’re in a good place in the Altoona Area School District and I’m very happy with that,” Hatch said, noting the district also settled two employee contracts that are set to be approved later this month.

Hatch said the district’s success is a testament to its board of directors, administrators, teachers, support staff members, students and parents — all of whom worked hard to make the 2024-25 school year a success.

“One of our focuses is to have very positive and proactive communications with all of our stakeholders and that will be something that we continue to strive to do as we move forward,” he said.