Lewiston School Committee Ward 6 member Meghan Hird shared her feelings about absenteeism and tardiness at Monday’s Lewiston School Committee meeting, saying parents are responsible for their children missing school or being late, not the students, who she said, want to be in school.

“This is making me really angry,” Hird said. “I’m going to say this in the nicest way possible — Lewiston as a district can only do so much if parents aren’t being parents, aren’t being responsible in getting their kids to school.”

Assistant Superintendent Karen Paquette showed committee members a new tool it is using to track attendance, truancy and tardiness. In looking at the first 37 days of school, nearly 10% of the 5,253 students have missed time at school. This past Friday, the number of absent students was 504. In the last 30 days, Lewiston schools have had just over 6,000 tardy students.

“That’s a lot of tardies in my opinion,” Paquette said. “A lot of missed time for students, whether its five minutes or three hours.”

“Attendance has been an area of focus for us,” Superintendent Jake Langlais said. “We still need people to come to school and be there and participate in education.”

Hird said that blaming students for absenteeism or tardiness is often the wrong target.

“It makes me upset because a lot of these kids don’t have an option,” Hird said. “They want to come to school. They want to learn. They want to be in a community. They want to belong some place. The parents are robbing our children of that opportunity and of an education.

“As a state, we need to hold these parents responsible for not getting their kids to school,” Hird added. “As a parent you are responsible for that child. You’re solely lacking as a parent if you can’t get your kid to school.”

“It is a whole community’s responsibility to make sure our kids come to school,” Paquette said. “We as a district know there are things we can do differently and be more clear about. That’s why attendance has become a big part of our work in terms of our goals.”

Hird said not being on time, and parents not stressing the importance of being on time, sends the wrong message. She complained that students need to learn that being on time is important when having a job.

Resident Matthew Agren agreed.

“Our kids who are coming out of the school system, tardy doesn’t just apply here,” Agren said, referring to the workplace. “‘Oh, I’m here,’ 30 minutes later. These are kids who graduated last year. These are kids who graduated the year before. Because they have never suffered penalties for it, they think that’s how the world works.”

According to Langlais, the data suggests that students living in poverty are just as likely to have issues with tardiness and chronic absenteeism as are children from more affluent homes.