APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — As we approach the end of the school year, Appleton students are still struggling with attendance.
Fewer students were chronically absent the first half of this school year compared to last. But district officials still say it’s an issue.
The Appleton Area School District was able to bring chronic absenteeism rates down at the elementary, middle and high school levels, the first semester of this school year.
But the habitual truancy rate increased across all three.
District administrators shared that attendance data with the school board on Wednesday.
“We have a variety of different practices and different things we’re trying to do to address that,” said Sheree Garvey, assistant superintendent of school services.
The district announced a goal to reduce chronic absenteeism in August 2022.
The goal is to decrease by 3 percentage points the number of students missing 10% or more of the school year. That works out to about 18 days.
At the elementary level, the goal is to go from a 29% chronic absenteeism rate to 26% at the elementary level, 23% to 20% at the middle school level, and at the high school level, 43% to 40%.
Garvey says the goal was met last semester.
“The end of the year will be telling to us, so we’ll take a look at that data in the second semester and look at the total data as a whole for the whole school year,” said Garvey.
2022-2023 Semester One data shows the chronic absenteeism rate for the elementary level was 18.9%. For middle school, it was 17.4%, and high school, 22.8%. But habitual truancy is what remains the top problem.
“We have seen an increase in our habitual truancy, and we’re still trying to determine why that is,” said Garvey.
Truancy rates at the elementary level went from 3% during the first semester of the 2021-2022 school year, to 6.4% during this school year’s first semester. At the middle school level it went from 15% to 23%, and the high school level jumped from 31% to 38%.
“We know that students experience chronic absenteeism for a variety of different reasons, one of them is mental health,” said Garvey.
The middle school level saw improvements, but not as much as the other school levels.
“That’s a rough age,” said Dr. Teresa Garate, executive vice president for strategic development and growth at Rogers Behavioral Health.
Dr. Garate says she’s not surprised.
“I used to be a teacher many years ago and regardless it’s kind of an age where, you know, you’re not the little elementary school child and then developmentally, you’re not a high schooler yet, there’s a lot of things going on with your body,” said Dr. Garate.
Garvey says the district has strategies to help with mental health.
“We have in district support to address the mental health supports, and then we sometimes have to reach out to out of district and it really comes down to us collaborating with the families,” said Garvey. “What resources do you need, what barriers are you experiencing for access to mental health support and what does that look like and what can we do to help facilitate that?”
To view Appleton Area School District’s full presentation on student attendance, click here.
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