Rochester City Schools’ new top leader is focusing on tackling chronic absenteeism and federal changes ahead of next school year.
Superintendent Eric Rosser is the district's fourth superintendent in five years. He started in July and the 2025-26 school year will be his first on the job.
In a recent school board meeting, he said one of the top priorities ahead of the first day of school is addressing chronic absenteeism, which applies to students who miss 10% or more of school days.
To that end, he said, staff are creating a survey for families to fill out to identify what challenges and obstacles are getting in the way of students getting to class — whether at home, in the community, or within the district.
“I really want to know, from a parent's perspective, what they see are challenges that we as a system might be creating so that we can then properly address them,” Rosser said.
School board member Cynthia Elliott said one major issue is transportation, and an ongoing shortage of bus drivers.
“We don't have the bus drivers that we need, and they get there late,” Elliott said. “There are students who start at — need to be in class at 7:30. The bus may not get there ‘til 8:30 or 9:00.”
According to the New York state Education Department, nearly 13,000 Rochester students were chronically absent in the 2023 to 24 school year. That’s 63% of students enrolled in the district.
As the district prepares for the coming school year, it is also facing uncertainty at the federal level.
The U.S. Department of Education and the Office of withheld funding that Congress had allocated for public schools for about a month. New York and other states sued and that money has since been released.
Superintendent Eric Rosser says there are still changes from the federal level that are expected to come – like cuts to Medicaid.
Services for students with disabilities who have an individualized education program, or IEP, receive services like speech therapy and occupational therapy that are reimbursable through Medicaid.
“We're still evaluating how the changes, based upon the Big, Beautiful Bill, is going to impact Medicaid, and how it may impact the district's ability to seek Medicaid reimbursements,” Rosser said. “So we're still monitoring having conversations around what that impact may be.
Rosser says he plans to update the community in a meeting later this month about any changes related to that.
A community conversation event with the superintendent is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 23, at School 33.
