BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Governor Maura Healey awarded the Hugh O’Donnell School in East Boston with a coveted prize for being one of the top ten schools in the state with perfect attendance.
The O’Donnell School struggled with chronic absenteeism in the years since the pandemic, when more than half the students were skipping classes.
The school has seen an 18 percent increase in attendance levels from 2023, and 51 percent of the school was chronically absent during the pandemic.
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“We know that it takes a team to create the success [with attendance] that we see is happening here,” Healey said to the students.
The reward presented to students was a golden basketball, signed by all members of the Celtics 2024 championship team.
While school officials said that attendance is not yet back to pre-pandemic levels, they said that it was “around the corner.”