By Melinda Roberts
Correspondent
GREEN BAY – The district’s board of education spent more than an hour Monday, March 11, on the presentation of Vicki Bayer, associate superintendent, PK-16 programs, and the work of Student Services regarding issues of attendance and truancy, which were also outlined in a memo from Bayer to Superintendent Michelle Langenfeld.
Christina Gingle, school social work coordinator, said district social workers “spend a majority of their time addressing barriers to education for our students including attendance and truancy.”
“Truancy can be difficult to understand,” said Gingle. “We have the state definition for truancy and habitual truancy, but we also have what we’re measured by on the school report card.”
Gingle said a student reported on state report cards as present less than 84 percent of possible school days is considered chronically absent.
The State of Wisconsin has compulsory school attendance laws and policies (Wisconsin State Statute 118.15). Board policies mimic those of the state (431 Policy and 431 Rule).
“The district is required to enforce truancy provisions to ensure students attend school,” Gingle said.
To ensure attendance guidelines are consistent throughout the district (in 42 schools), an attendance guidebook was prepared to solidify expectations, said Gingle.
“The majority of our time in interventions are designed to positively promote attendance for our entire student population,” Gingle said.
A variety of communication platforms are used to engage the students and their families, including social media, take-home folders, and take-home notes and newsletters.
“Engagement is key,” said Gingle. “The relationships students and families have with staff are integral to the students wanting to succeed.”
Gingle said district social workers reach out to the families as soon as there are attendance concerns, and when there hasn’t been improvement, social workers and school resource officers partner to conduct home visits.
“Inconsistent attendance is often the manifestation of underlying complex issues and therefore require multiple, multiple interventions,” said Gingle.
During these home visits, she said the goal is to identify the barriers to attendance, problem solve, and “focus on reengagement of the students and our parents, because without our parents we know that we’re not going to get the desired outcomes.”
“When students start to miss school, then there is that lack of learning, so when they reengage they come back and they’re frustrated, they’re behind, and so it’s hard to get them caught up academically,” Gingle said. “But that frustration leads them to not want to come to school any longer. So that’s why it’s so critically important to get them reengaged as quickly as we can.”
Patterns of truancy in the Green Bay district are beginning at the elementary level.
Howe Social Worker Crystal Dubey and McAuliffe, Martin & Wilder Social Worker Cindy Leclair provided further insight into barriers facing district families to attend school.
They noted some barriers include walking to school in the cold weather, parental responsibilities to younger children at home and lack of transportation.
Bayer said citations are used “as a last-ditch effort to try and get the child into school.”
Gingle said the Green Bay Police Department issues the tickets and tickets are issued “only to families that are chronically absent and families who have not allowed us to engage them further, not families who are trying to resolve truancy issues.”
When a citation is issued, Gingle said the social workers work closely with the student and the parents to work towards attendance improvement.
Two-hundred-eight-two citations were issued for the 2016-17 school year, 248 in 2017-18, and 138 citations have been issued for the 2018-19 school year as January 10, according to the memo from Bayer.
It was stated during the meeting the fine for the first offense is $366.
Concerns about the financial and legal burdens of the citations were expressed by several board members.
“You get a ticket and then you have to appear in court,” said Trustee Rhonda Sitnikau. “So these are families with mental illness and transportation issues – and we’ve already discussed this and we’ve already said this – this is actually happening to these families and then they have to go to court.”
Sitnikau said issuing the citations shouldn’t result in creating more hardships for families.
“Let’s say there’s a ticket, there’s a court date, there’s mental illness, there’s transportation issues. What happens if that parent doesn’t actually – they get arrested,” Sitnikau said. “I think we really need to think about – it might be a small percentage of people that are affected by this compared to our student body, but I’m not really interested in continuing that practice.”