WATERBURY, Conn. (WTNH) -- Students head back to school in several cities and towns, including Waterbury.

The Brass City has a lot fewer teacher vacancies than this time last year, but they're facing a bigger challenge, which is chronic absenteeism. That’s defined as missing at least 10% of the school year, and that became a bigger problem during the pandemic.

It’s held on in many urban school districts. When learning was all remote, it was easy to skip school, and too many students are still finding it easy to skip school too much of the time.

That is a major focus of the superintendent, who was made permanent this spring. Dr. Schwartz is no longer interim superintendent. News 8 caught up with him last week to talk about some better news in another post-pandemic challenge.

“We’ve cut

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