Attendance vs. Truancy
Attendance:
Your student can miss up to 9 days excused by you calling in. (except vacations, which must be pre-approved by your student’s principals at least 1 week before your vacation). All days a student does not attend counts towards the nine days.
After nine days of absence of any kind (excused or unexcused), you must have a doctor’s note that your child was seen the day missed and are excused from school. If you are not able to go to the doctor, bring your child to school to the school nurse. They will be excused for the day if the nurse deems the child sick.
You are not in jeopardy of truancy if your student's absences are excused. If you do not call your child in as absent, the student is unexcused. Parents/Guardians can still call in or turn in the doctor's note to get it changed from unexcused. Please do so as quickly as possible.
Truancy:
Your student has five (5) unexcused absences within the last 180 school days. Schools are required to look back 180 days, which includes last year’s attendance.
Truancy Example:
It is November 1st in the 2019-2020 school year there are 2 unexcused absences. When attendance is checked back 180 school days, this equals looking back at the 2018-2019 school year. From November 15th, 2018 to end of May 2019, the student has 3 unexcused absences.
Thus: 3 unexcused absences in 2018-2019
+ 2 unexcused absences in 2019-2020
5 unexcused absences = Truancy
FAQ about Attendance
Q1: Your student does not want to go to school. What do you do?
- School is not an option for students. Remind them it is their “job.”
- Be consistent with positive reinforcement or consequences.
- Talk to the school about the problem. They have great ideas and resources!
- If we work together to get them to school, we can help even more once they are at school.
Q2: What if our family planned a vacation during the school year?
- Try to avoid vacations during the school year.
- It is hard for students to catch up.
- Missing instruction from the teacher often puts them behind in understanding concepts that build upon each other.
- Schools in our district can excuse up to one school week. More than one school week of vacation does not have to be excused by the school.
- Each student’s principal must approve vacation days before the student goes, or the days are unexcused.
- Write a letter to your student(s) principal(s) for pre-approval at least one week before your vacation.
- It is your responsibility for your students to complete their work while on vacation. The homework is due to their teachers the day they return to school.
- If your student(s) in high school, upon approval of the principal, final exams will be completed on a Saturday (set up by the principal) before your student leaving on vacation.
Q3: What if my family has planned or wants to plan a vacation for the end of the school year?
- Do not plan your vacation to start the last day!
- Plan it to start after the built-in five (5) snow days. However, this does not mean the school board will not make the district make up more snow days if we use over five days.
- Make up days for snow days are part of the school year. They do count!
Click Here for a PDF document containing the attendance and truancy information outlined above.
Click here for a PDF document containing the attendance FAQ outlined above.