(Image provided by Appleton Area School District)
More than 25 percent of students in Appleton high schools reached the district’s standard for habitual truancy in the first semester.
School climate coordinator Sheree Garvey says it takes five unexcused absences to reach that level. Twenty-seven percent did.
Being about 10 minutes late for a class, or missing part or all of a day, counts for one.
Garvey says they have attendance teams at every school that follow each situation. When a student has three unexcused absences, she says the school attendance team will send a letter to parents. She says the district typically also makes a phone call.
If they get to five, the district can hold a truancy conference with the student and parents. That happened in 12 percent of those cases during the first semester.
At the middle schools, nearly 10 percent were habitually truant. There were conferences in 20 percent of cases.
