APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – What should happen when students skip school? A truancy task force in Appleton has come up with three suggestions.
Complaints from parents, teachers and district leaders got Appleton’s truancy court program shut down last year.
A group, tasked with providing the district school board with ways on how to move forward in addressing truancy concerns was formed shortly after.
The Appleton School’s Advisory Truancy Task Force’s goal is simple: keep kids from skipping class.
“Our goal is to look at services and how we get the right services to kids, versus add discipline,” said Polly Vanden Boogaard, assistant superintendent of student services for the Appleton Area School District.
Discipline through a truancy court system was the district’s answer for years. That ended last year.
Vanden Boogaard tells FOX 11 the task force now wants to replace truancy punishments with resources.
“We’re really trying to use an asset model to provide services to our students, or at least give those options. Within there, there’s always a continuum.”
Three models are being proposed.
Chronically absent students would go before a community truancy board instead of a judge.
They are mostly the same, except for what happens in the most severe student truancy cases.
Option one leaves court out of the equation entirely. Option two would let the truancy board refer a student to the county, without a citation. Lastly, option three would let the truancy board choose between a county referral or a citation.
And not everyone agreed about which option is best.
The truancy task force is made up of members from the community, including school district staff, law enforcement, and social service workers.
Polly Vanden Boogaard is its leader.
“We need to do better, and so I think it’s enhanced the conversation; it’s brought different voices to the table which has allowed us to bring in multiple perspectives and make sure we’re addressing all needs.”
The Appleton Area School District truancy task force will present all three of these options to the school board on August 14th.
