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Dropout and suspension rates in Haverhill schools continued to decline this past school year, dropping in both categories by nearly half compared to two years ago.
In 2025, 2.5% of the 8,000 students in the district dropped out, down from 4.3% in 2023. Likewise, the suspension rate dropped from 6.2% in 2023 to 3% in 2025.
Haverhill School Superintendent Margaret Marotta along with Safe and Supportive Schools Liaison Maureen Irons reported on the figures as part of a larger presentation on discipline and school safety at a recent Haverhill School Committee meeting.
“We have one of the lowest Gateway Cities suspension rates in the state and we’ve been contacted by multiple school districts that have asked us to do training and having conversations with them about what we are doing to lower our suspension rate,” Marotta said.
Among interventions Marotta credits is increased student engagement through the PASS Program operated by Haverhill YMCA. the program, which stands for Positive Alternative to School Suspension, was adopted four years ago. Instead of being sent home as a punishment, students have the option to participate in school day program at the Y. The program combines one-on-one tutoring, group behavioral and mental health counseling and recreation to help students get back on track. Since 2022, 1,545 students have been referred to the program, some more than once.
YMCA Executive Director Tracy Fuller said she believes the secret to the program’s success is that it is designed to help students understand why they were suspended. The Y also provides tutoring to help them catch up with their classroom work.
“Having that instructional time is key. If a student is doing an out-of-school suspension, there is no guarantee that they are working on their schoolwork, but there is when they’re with us,” Fuller said.
Fuller said the average stay in the PASS Program is 2.42 days and students must create a plan to re-enter school. Each student also leaves with a one-month membership to the Y.
Students face a number of types of penalties for bad behavior from notification of parents and guardians, an administrative intervention, a warning and detention. The school system has recently incorporated a so-called “restorative justice” strategy to its discipline practice which involves helping the student understand the harm their action caused their school community and finding a way to repair that.
Ward 6 School Committee member Yonnie Collins said despite a decrease in suspensions, she asked if too many students are still being given detention when other strategies might be called for.
“It sounds like we’re encouraging a detention when maybe a conversation with the student is warranted, a parent meeting is warranted. I’m thinking are we jumping to the things of the past that we say are in the past when we talk about kids being overdisciplined,” she said.
Marotta responded by saying her staff takes each report seriously and works diligently to get to the bottom of each one.
The top reason high school students are sent to the program is for disrespecting a teacher or staff member. For Gateway Academy students, it was for fighting. For students at the Dr. Paul C. Nettle School, skipping school was most often cited.
In her presentation, Irons said teachers reported 29,950 incidents of bad behavior this past year. Truancy topped the list with 10,044 reports, followed by defiant behavior with 5,540 reports; disruptive behavior, 4,469; and tardiness,1,700.
Marotta said that while 10,044 seems like a large number of referrals for truancy, there were 2.1 million chances for students to be truant over the course of the school year. Irons said the high school has found that sending a team member to make a sweep of the halls prior to the class bell has helped reduce truancy reports.
Haverhill teachers were the recipients of 333 aggressive attacks this year, with 213 for physical aggression, 71 bites and 32 pinching and scratching incidents, Iron said.