Janesville schools stress attendance
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Mira Harris and classmates in Pam Ross' kindergarten classroom at Wilson Elementary School celebrate after being informed they were the were the winning class for best attendance for the week. The winning class gets rewarded with an extra recess.
JANESVILLE — It’s a simple idea: Students don’t learn if they’re not in school.
The Janesville public schools have worked for years to reduce truancy. Not much has changed.
The districtwide habitual truancy rate has hovered between 17 percent and 20 percent for the past eight years, according to state statistics.
Wilson School, with nearly 18 percent habitual truancy last year, had the worst record among elementary schools. Wilson also struggles with test scores.
“We decided that if we’re going to have the children improve academically, we have to get the children here,” Principal Wilson Beck Bicha said.
Final statistics aren’t known for this school year, but schools have made truancy a priority, and they’re showing results.
One reason truancy is getting the attention is that the district’s new administrator- evaluation process grades principals on truancy, among other factors.
But principals say it’s also the right thing to do.
The high schools have much higher truancy rates than the elementary schools. Craig High School’s rate last year was 32.4 percent. Parker High’s was 33.7 percent.
But it’s at the elementary level where lifelong habits are formed, say elementary educators, so that’s the front line when it comes to truancy.
Janesville’s elementary truancy rate grew from 3.5 percent in 1998-99 to 9.2 percent last year.
Could this year be the year Janesville turned it around?
Midyear results showed Kennedy Elementary School with no truants, compared with 22 at the same time last year.
Kennedy Principal Niel Bender said much of the difference is that his school now has a social worker for one day a week.
The school board cut social workers a couple years ago. Kennedy lost its social worker, and its habitual truancy rate jumped from 7.4 percent in 2005-06 to 13.2 percent in 2006-07 to 15.6 percent in 2007-08.
Now the social worker is back. She keeps track of students who might be come truant. One of her key tasks is sending out warning letters when parents use up a majority of their allotted “parental excuses.”
Janesville parents can excuse their children for any reason 10 days a year. After that, unless they have a valid excuse such as a note from a doctor, it’s an unexcused absence. Five unexcused absences in a semester make the child a habitual truant.
“One of the reasons we were pretty high before was that parents simply don’t understand the attendance code, or they don’t really realize where their child is in terms of the number of days they missed,” Bender said.
“I think, inherently, our kids enjoy coming to school,” so there’s no need for motivational programs, Bender said. “I think they’re already motivated to come.”
Wilson School has taken a different path than Kennedy. Students and staff get constant reminders, and awards abound.
Classes with the best attendance each week get an extra 15 minutes of recess, for example. “They are very motivated,” Wilson Principal Bicha said.
The teachers are motivated, too, because while social worker Jessica Grandt-Turke supervises the extra recess, the teachers get an extra 15 minutes of prep time.
It’s not just reducing truancy, Bicha said. It’s also improving the attendance of those who aren’t truant.
Attendance is more important for kids who live in poverty, because they often don’t have the advantages that help others catch up after missing a day of school, Grandt-Turke said.
Wilson, which has the district’s highest percentage of students living in poverty, is making progress. It reports a 77 percent increase in perfect attendance for the third quarter, typically a very difficult quarter for attendance.
Grandt-Turke also targets parents who might have transportation problems. No money for gas or car repairs is a common issue. Those parents don’t want to have their children walk in bad weather or through “potentially unsafe areas,” the social worker said.
Grandt-Turke will visit parents again and again, if that’s what it takes, to impress on them the importance of school.
“Part of our job is to make it a priority, and that requires a change in mindset for some of our families,” Bicha said.
Bicha said the attitude is “whatever it takes.” She gives out city bus tokens and even umbrellas and alarm clocks to overcome whatever barrier a parent brings up.
Grandt-Turke said she’s been working on truancy for all seven years she’s been at Wilson, but now that it’s Job 1 throughout the school, she sees a lot of progress.
And when the kids arrive—on time or not—staff members are taught to welcome them cheerfully, Bicha said. “We’re happy you’re here” is the constant message.
Wilson’s incentive program has caught fire, to hear Bicha tell it. One third-grader recently dragged his mother by the hand up to Bicha, saying: “You have to explain it to her why I have to be here!”
What’s a truant?
Who is and who is not a truant can come down to who’s interpreting the rules.
A student can be absent for many days a year, but if those absences are “excused,” then that’s not a problem.
But a student with a just a handful of unexcused absences is what the state calls a habitual truant.
Wisconsin defines a habitual truant as one who is absent without an excuse part or all of a day for five or more days in a semester.
A doctor’s note is an excuse, for an example. Funerals, religious holidays, being in hospital or jail also are valid excuses.
And parents in Janesville have what amount to 10 freebies a year—they can keep their kids at home for 10 days for any reason. The district calls these parental excuses.
“Each district establishes its own policy for excused absences. So what is excused in one district might be unexcused in another,” according to the state Department of Public Instruction’s Web site.
“Schools may define ‘part of a day’ … differently. For example, one district might state that any time unexcused over 15 minutes is ‘part of a day,’ whereas another district might define ‘part of a day’ as three or more hours,” according to the DPI.
In Janesville elementary schools, students late by more than 15 minutes are recorded as absent for half a day. The same goes for students who leave more than 15 minutes before the end of the school day.
In Janesville middle and high schools, if you’re tardy for a class by more than five minutes, you are recorded as absent for that class.
The district has just begun to discuss possible changes in what “part of a day” means, said Marge Hallenbeck, coordinator of student services. Also to be discussed is whether students should be medically excused without a doctor’s note if they have chronic conditions such as fever, asthma or migraines.
Targeting truancy
Janesville’s Wilson School is working to not only reduce truancy but also to increase attendance for all students. Programs started this year are:
-- Monthly awards—Names of students who have perfect attendance for a week are placed in a drawing. The more weeks, the more chances to win. A grand prize winner gets a $75 shopping spree. The money comes from an anonymous donation. One student bought a bicycle. Another bought pants, socks and athletic shoes. Other students will win lesser prizes donated by local businesses, including McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts, Michael’s Cycles, Rivers Edge Bowling and Mac’s Pizza Shack.
-- Weekly attendance awards—Homerooms with the highest percentage of perfect attendance in kindergarten through second grade and in third through fifth grade get an extra 15 minutes of recess.
-- Promotion of the school’s breakfast club, which ensures kids are in the building on time.
-- Party—Any student who has missed five or fewer days of school this year will get “Pizza with the Principal” or “Soda with the Social Worker.”
-- Six-day letters—Warning letters are sent to parents when they have used up six of their 10 “parental excuse” days,
-- Morning greeter—A staff member stands at the curb at the main entrance each day to encourage students to hurry so they aren’t marked tardy.
-- Other measures include quarterly and yearly perfect attendance awards, attendance points sheets, phone calls to parents, home visits and parent conferences when attendance problems arise.
School officials say the effort is paying off.
Wilson recorded these numbers of students who had perfect attendance this school year:
-- First quarter—76, up from 55 the previous year.
-- Second quarter—42, up from 26 the previous year.
-- First semester—19, up from 12.
-- Third quarter—39, up from 22.
