APPLETON, Wis. (WFRV) – Another meeting comes and goes without a decision on whether to reinstate a controversial truancy ordinance in Appleton.
After two alders on the city’s Safety and Licensing Committee changed the original resolution, committee members collectively decided to table a vote until their next meeting. This decision came after several hours of lively discussion.
Appleton Area School District officials have asked the city of Appleton to reinstate a truancy ordinance to help them with attendance. According to district officials, last school year, 29.1% of their high school students were chronically absent (missing 10 percent of school days during the year) and 33.8% of high school students met the criterion for being habitually truant last semester (missing some of or all of five or more school days in a semester without an excuse).
“The thing is, we’ve got to get them in the door,” said Appleton North High School teacher Chad Endres. “The students have to show up. They aren’t going to show up just because we think good things or we are nice people. They’re going to show up when they have the choice of going to school and getting the help they need or a more difficult choice.”
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The truancy ordinance would give local judges the power to impose a number of dispositions intended to get students to come back to school. These dispositions range from a court order for these students to return to class to a ticket that would include a fine.
Appleton alders would have the ability to choose among a menu of state-approved dispositions that would then get included in the ordinance.
District officials stress that this is a tool of last resort. They say they have a variety of other tools they use to help students who are missing lots of school, everything from alternative education programs to counseling. They say most students respond to these interventions and their attendance improves.
“During the 2024-2025 school year, 1269 students met the criteria for habitual truancy,” said Stephanie Marta, who is one of the district’s attendance coordinators. “594 students received a truancy letter, and a meeting was held. Of those 594, only 61 were referred to the county for truancy intervention. 533 responded to the plan at the truancy meeting or to school-based interventions.”
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However, district officials said there were about 31 kids last school year who never or hardly attended school and wouldn’t work with the school district to figure out solutions. They said having this truancy ordinance could incentivize students to work with the district.
“There’s no worst outcome for them; they aren’t going to graduate from high school if we don’t intervene, and as adults, we can’t let teenagers continue to make bad decisions,” said Appleton Area School District superintendent Greg Hartjes. “We’ve heard from parents who tell us they need help; we can’t get my child to come to school.”
Appleton repealed its truancy ordinance back in 2019. Despite this, district officials said it had been effective in approving students’ attendance.
“On average, there were 770 high school students who were involved with the truancy process prior to the year 2019,” said Stacey Marta, another attendance coordinator for the district. “Approximately 600 of those students approved their attendance and didn’t receive a ticket. Of the 170 students who received the ticket, more than 90% did improve their attendance, complied with the law and followed the court’s order. As a result, the ticket was expunged and the students didn’t have to pay the ticket.”
Not everybody is on board with reinstating the truancy ordinance.
“Resorting to punitive measures will create additional alienation, a sense of distrust between students at a time when trust in institutions are at an all time low,” said Ben Niles of Appleton.
“Especially concerned for marginalized groups,” said Michelle Pauli, who has kids in the district. “This type of ticketing will be unfair to poorer students, poorer families that will be impacted much more.”
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At the Safety and Licensing committee meeting on Wednesday night, Alder Sheri Hartzheim proposed a new version of the resolution. It would impose the truancy ordinance on a trial basis from the start of the new year until July of 2027. The city would conduct periodic checks of the progress and success of the ordinance.
Hartzheim’s version of the ordinance would also
- AASD will develop and enforce a policy of internal supports and tools which will be uniformly applied to all students with truancy or chronic absenteeism issues.
- Said policy will include enforcement of the truancy ordinance to be used as a final measure should other supports be unsuccessful with a student.
- AASD will provide evidence of the supports that the district has offered to students with attendance issues before any court dispositions for truancy are levied upon a student.
Alder Brad Firkus also proposed a resolution that would limit the number of dispositions that a judge could impose on a student and would compel the school district to provide truancy reports to the city’s clerk office.
Appleton Area School District officials said they weren’t told that the resolution would change at the meeting on Thursday night.
“I think we would fully support the new resolution because it does allow the council to set the dispositions which we certainly believe it should be doing,” Superintendent Hartjes said.
In light of the new resolutions and several unanswered questions, alders on the Safety and Licensing Committee said that they wanted to table this matter until their next meeting.
