Since Superintendent Doug White began the school year, he reports that kids are less often leaving classrooms and he's being more often seen in them.

White conducted a midyear evaluation at the Joint School Committee meeting on Thursday night, reviewing the goals he set out at the start of the school year.

White said he had seen a number of improvements, including fewer visits to the school nurse at elementary schools.

He said the numbers were as high as 820 visits for one elementary school in the month of October. Across all schools in the tri-town, the visits averaged 488 for that month.

“If you start timing that out, how much instructional time have we lost?” said White.

White said evaluating the students could show that some kids frequently leave to avoid particular subjects or could be indicative of other issues.

Rochester Memorial School Principal Derek Medeiros said he and his faculty discussed curbing trips to the nurse by adding first-aid kits in classrooms teachers could address minor injuries.

By paying more attention to those visits, White said schools have reported a drop and currently average 150 per month across all schools.

Regarding his supervision goal, White said his plans to make regular visits to classrooms started out well.

“I would have to say up until the school business administrator left I was tearing it up,” he said.

Taking on the added responsibilities of that position, however, has meant he hasn’t been in the classroom as much as he hoped.

White also discussed fleshing out plans to improve technology in the schools and keep computers up to date.

Tim Scholz, a member of the Rochester School Committee, said, “I believe you are doing all the right things in regards to getting the data and using the data to make decisions.”

But he said he hoped the year-end review would prove constructive rather than giving everything a “ten.”