Allen Sarvinas of Topsham is Maine state director for Parents’ Rights in Education.
 
When public school officials blame parents for chronic absenteeism, they reveal a deeper problem they would rather not confront: Maine’s public schools have spent years pushing families away, only to act surprised when trust breaks down.
 
That is what stood out in the recent report on Spruce Mountain public schools. Administrators tied chronic absenteeism to inconsistent home routines and weak parent follow-through. The district reported that 19% of students are chronically absent, while another 15% attend only 80% to 90% of school days. Officials also described rising behavioral problems, growing student needs and teachers feeling “deflated and defeated.”   
 
Those are serious concerns. But blaming parents is the easiest answer, not the most honest one.
 
A better question is this: why have so many parents become disconnected from the public schools that now demand their cooperation?
 
For decades, public schools have made choices that have distanced parents from their children’s education. Public schools moved away from phonics and embraced trendy reading-teaching methods that many parents did not recognize or understand. Then came “new math,” which similarly isolated families from helping their children at home. School boards told parents to trust the experts, even as parents watched outcomes decline. They were treated increasingly like spectators rather than primary stakeholders.
 
That breakdown is vital. When public schools make it harder for parents to participate in their children’s learning, they weaken the partnership every healthy school system depends on. Then, when absenteeism rises and behavior worsens, officials turn around and blame the same families they have alienated for years.
 
The same pattern held during the unnecessarily prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns. Teachers’ unions and education bureaucracies refused to designate teachers and administrators as essential employees. When families needed public schools the most, parents juggled work, child care and failing at-home learning with little stability or support. That experience permanently damaged trust. It showed many families that the system saw their child’s education as secondary.
 
Today, the divide has grown even wider as public schools mandate cultural allegiances, ignoring families’ sincerely held beliefs. Too often, they are ignored, insulted or labeled for asking questions. For example, parents are being told that their children’s privacy rights are secondary to another’s self-declared identity. When did someone’s personal choices become the same as immutable characteristics? Parents know it’s unfair and unsafe, and their next thought is, “These are the people responsible for educating my child?” 
 
We don’t need to ask why trust and excellence continue to decline in public schools.
 
The rapid rise of homeschooling is a real-world outcome that supports our argument. The same reasons driving this rise are also driving the behavior and absenteeism that public schools are experiencing. Many parents remain in public schools because it is compulsory. They are unable to take advantage of alternatives. If our next governor opts into the federal school choice program, public schools will either face a mass exodus or embrace the Maine Department of Education’s current proclamation to return to basics.
 
To Maine’s education establishment, we are providing a friendly alert.
 
Parents are not the root problem. Parents are responding to a system that has too often sidelined them, lowered standards, ignored their beliefs and resisted accountability. When children absorb the message that public school is optional, standards are flexible and authority is weak, absenteeism is not surprising. A weak and passive culture produces these detrimental habits.
 
Acting as if “everything is awesome” will not solve Maine’s education crisis, especially if public schools continue to scold families they have spent years pushing away. Let’s restore transparency, accountability and academic excellence. Let’s treat parents as primary stakeholders. Let’s return public schools to their core mission: providing students with the resources they need to build the skills necessary to achieve prosperity and independence.
 
Maine families are paying attention. Their actions are demanding reform. Public schools now face a choice: keep blaming others while trust continues to erode, or rebuild confidence through transparency, accountability and excellence.
 
That choice will shape the future of Maine education.