APPLETON, Wis. (WFRV)- Appleton Area School District officials say they want to see a truancy citation ordinance reinstated in Appleton to help them address chronic absenteeism in their district.
On Monday night at a community meeting at the Appleton Public Library, district officials provided additional information on what a truancy citation ordinance would entail. Community members also had an opportunity to provide feedback to district staff.
“Ultimately, we’re the adults and we can’t allow teenagers to make decisions, poor decisions that could perhaps mean a lifetime of a lack of success,” said Appleton Area School District superintendent Greg Hartjes. “As adults, we need to intervene.”
According to district officials, the truancy citation would be a last resort effort to reach students when other interventions haven’t worked. Appleton Area School District is the only district in the state with two full-time social workers who are attendance coordinators.
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When a student crosses the threshold of five unexcused absences, these social workers and other district staff will go to great lengths to provide the support and solutions needed to get that student back to school. Only when they’ve exhausted all other options and are still not getting a response from the student and their family would they consider a truancy citation.
“We feel like we’re going to still need that one piece that is going to get the attention of some students and families who currently aren’t responding to anything we’re doing,” said Hartjes.
If there were a truancy citation ordinance in Appleton, a local judge would have the option to issue court orders to students who won’t come to school, such as:
- An order for the student to attend school
- An order for the student to attend counseling or a supervised work program.
- A fine
Although the district sees problems at all grade levels, Hartjes said high school students tend to have the highest rates of habitual truancy (five or more unexcused absences per semester) and chronic absenteeism (missing 10 percent or more of school days during a school year). About 18.5 percent of high school students were both habitually truant and chronically absent last school year, amounting to 866 students.
According to district officials, last school year, 240 high school students missed 50 or more days of school.
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Hartjes said that the likelihood of students having success in life generally decreases as they miss more and more school days throughout the year.
Some community members said they don’t believe a truancy citation is the way to get students to come back to school.
“It’s punitive and it criminalizes students,” said AASD parent Jax Anderson. “I think there are other ways that are more restorative. I think that they could increase the mental health support for students across the board, they could improve their mentorship program.”
Hartjes said that they already have a bunch of programs in place to try to address truancy. However, because of a lack of state funding and funding gaps in their budget, they can’t afford to pay for additional services. That’s why they’re trying to go with the truancy citation route.
“It (truancy citations) destroys the relationship between the kids and the school district, it really doesn’t make them want to come to school,” Anderson said.
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Appleton city officials repealed the city’s truancy citation ordinance back in 2019. Hartjes said that reinstating it now would be more effective because now it’s truly a last-resort measure when they’ve exhausted all other options. He said back in 2019, they didn’t have all the additional programs and supports they now have for students who don’t come to school.
It’s up to Appleton’s common council to reinstate any truancy ordinance. Officials tell Local 5 News this issue will likely go before a city committee sometime at the end of the month. If it gets the green light from the committee members, it would then go before the full common council for a vote.
Officials would implement this truancy ordinance through a four-semester trial period if it were to pass through the Common Council.
“We have 175 days to teach a kindergartner how to read,” Hartjes said. “We have 175 days to teach a junior in high school chemistry. That’s not a lot of time, we need every one of those days.”
