One of Carver’s longtime school partners is receiving national attention for something extraordinary: Ponus Ridge STEAM Academy reduced its chronic absenteeism rate from a post-pandemic high of 31% to just 9.1%—the lowest rate among Norwalk’s 21 schools.
The achievement is the subject of an extensive feature in The 74, the national education news organization, which visited Ponus to examine how the school accomplished what has become one of public education’s most difficult post-pandemic challenges.
The answer, the article suggests, is not one program or intervention. It is leadership, persistence, relationships—and an extraordinary degree of attention to individual students.
Knowing Who Is Missing—and Why
The 74 takes readers inside Ponus Ridge’s biweekly attendance meetings, led by Assistant Principal Evan Byron, where counselors and administrators review students in danger of becoming chronically absent one by one.
They don't simply count absences. They ask why.
The team examines patterns, communicates repeatedly with families, makes home visits when necessary and looks for practical solutions when something about a student's experience at school is contributing to the problem. The result is an approach that is both data-driven and deeply personal: know the student, know the family, understand the obstacle and keep working until the student comes back.
Principal Damon Lewis describes attendance as an “all-hands-on-deck initiative.”
That commitment extends throughout the school. Teachers monitor their students. Families receive regular communication. Attendance appears in Lewis's weekly messages to parents. And the school has simultaneously worked to create something equally important: a place students want to attend.
Robotics, 3D printing and music technology are among the high-interest courses available to students. Ponus has expanded its extracurricular offerings to 17 after-school clubs, ranging from rock band and weightlifting to crochet and jewelry making.
The larger philosophy is unmistakable. Getting students through the school doors matters. What they encounter once they arrive matters just as much.
Leadership That Reaches Beyond the School Day
The 74 feature also portrays a school deeply connected to its families and community.
Lewis has introduced monthly Walk-Through Wednesdays that invite people into the school, helped establish a Hispanic parent group and an in-school food pantry, and brought immigration attorneys to Ponus for an evening program where families could learn about their rights.
“I want to meet people where they are,” Lewis told The 74, “and they are hungry for resources.”
That philosophy of meeting young people and families where they are is one Carver knows well.
Ponus Ridge has been an important Carver partner for many years. Carver works hand-in-hand with Ponus administrators and teachers to provide after-school programming during the academic year and summer transition programming that helps students prepare for the opportunities and expectations ahead.
Our partnership has given Carver the privilege of seeing up close the commitment to young people that The 74 has now shared with a national education audience.
National Recognition for Damon Lewis—and the Ponus Community
The story comes during an especially meaningful period for Ponus leadership. Lewis, who served as principal of Ponus Ridge for 11 years, was named Middle Level National Principal of the Year by the National Association of Secondary School Principals.
NASSP CEO Ronn Nozoe said Lewis “demonstrates how visionary leadership can transform school communities.”
The results described by The 74 help explain that recognition. Ponus reduced chronic absenteeism to 9.1% in 2024–25, compared with 17.2% across Norwalk. The article also reports that 91.5% of former Ponus students were on track after ninth grade to graduate from high school within four years.
And families are responding. In Norwalk's school-choice environment, Ponus had a waiting list for the first time, according to the article.
Behind each of those numbers is something more important: a young person who is in school, connected to teachers and peers, and present for the experiences that can shape what comes next.
Carver congratulates Damon Lewis, Evan Byron, the counselors, teachers and entire Ponus Ridge STEAM Academy community on this well-deserved national recognition.
We are proud to have worked alongside Ponus for so many years—and especially proud that an approach centered on knowing students, engaging families and refusing to let young people slip through the cracks is being shared with educators across the country.
Read the full The 74 story: “How a Connecticut School Slashed Its Chronic Absenteeism Rate.”