AASD
(WTAQ-WLUK) — In 2019, the Appleton Area School District repealed the truancy law that fined families of truant children.
Now, they want to reintroduce the law, according to Superintendent Greg Hartjes.
“We’ve come to realize that we were doing it wrong,” he said. “The way that we were doing it is overly punitive.”
In a presentation Wednesday night to the Appleton Common Council, Hartjes showed how the district is facing rising “chronic absenteeism.”
“That’s over 1,000 high school students in Appleton that missed 18 or more school days last year, chronically absent. Those are the kids we’re concerned about,” he explained.
The district reported that 293 students last year missed over 50 days of classes and did not pass all of their classes.
“We have no interesting in bringing truancy court back. We have no interest in punitive measures, other than whatever will get a student to engage. We need something to reach students who currently, just simply aren’t coming to school and we can’t engage with them,” Hartjes said.
He added this is about reaching the students as a last resort.
“Right now, there’s no relationship,” Hartjes said. “There’s none at all. We’re talking about kids who aren’t coming to school. We’re talking about kids who are missing 50 to 100 days of school in a year. Those students will not find success unless they come to school.”
The meeting was a presentation to the council, not an action item. The Common Council will decide on truancy laws at a later date.
Parents in attendance were not offered the opportunity to provide public comment on the presentation.
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