SHAWANO, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The Shawano School District is kicking off a new campaign for the school year.
As students head off for their first day today, they may notice new signs at school. You may notice them at area businesses as well.
Two school resource officers created them in hopes to encourage youth to stay in school and have good attendance.
“One of the first things that I saw with the school resource position was that we had a big problem with attendance,” said School Resource Officer Tyler Thornborrow.
Thornborrow tells FOX 11 he was at home one night and began talking about these problems with his wife and how to address them.
“One of the things that came up was through some very positive practices and some incentive-based stuff.”
With his idea, the Shawano police department, school district and area businesses are now collaborating to reduce truancy rates among students with the “We Need You Here” campaign.
“In a semester, we have kids missing 40, 50, 60 days,” said Officer Brandy Hoffman, also a school resource officer for Shawano.
Hoffman was asked to team up with Thornborrow.
She tells FOX 11 some of these absences happen to be students dealing with mental health issues or other circumstances.
“When the kids aren’t in school, we don’t know if they’re okay. That’ s a huge concern because we want to make sure they’re getting fed, that kind of stuff.”
“I think it’s a great way to support our staff and students and get our students to school,” said Kurt Krizan, acting superintendent.
Krizan is happy to have something like this, since attendance has been a growing issue.
“Looking at our data and our numbers, it is a problem.”
According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Shawano’s district had a chronic absenteeism rate of 20.1% during the 2020-2021 school year.
During the 2019-2020 school year, it was only a 9.8% absenteeism rate.
“COVID has had some affect to that, but some grade levels are higher than others and some are lower,” said Krizan.
With “We Need You Here,” area businesses and the schools will give incentives to students with good attendance in hopes to keep them in school and help them get there if they need that extra boost.
“We have oil changes, car washes,” said Thornborrow. “I haven’t had any business tell me no. Which is something neat to have, everybody rally around these kids.”
More than 180 businesses in the Shawano area are already pledging to take part.
The locally-owned Pizza Hut in Shawano is donating pizza to the freshman class today to kick off the school year, as well as the start of the campaign.
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