GCSD changes truancy policies

Glenwood Board of Education members are making changes to the school district’s truancy policy they hope will give administrators more flexibility and students an extra layer of accountability.

The school’s new policy, which had its first reading at last Monday’s school board meeting, only slightly varies from it’s current plan for truancy, or chronic absenteeism. The current policy has the school notifying parents of the five and 10 day absence mark and then proceeding to court ordered mediation at 15 days.

The new policy, which is expected to go into effect in the second semester, would have administrators stepping in at 15 days and assessing those absences to determine the pattern of that chronic absenteeism.

“There are some legitimate exceptions and we need to be able to take them into account,” said Glenwood Community School District Superintendent Devin Embray. “Parents may get a letter at five (days absent) and a phone call at 10 but when the students gets to 15 instead of the administrator going straight to mediation they can review those five days and make a determination. Maybe not all those (absences) fit (the pattern).”

Under Iowa code, a student who has eight or more unexcused absences in school in any one quarter – considered a 45-day period – is considered truant.

School officials can and do make referrals to county attorneys for mediation. If a student misses 15 days without getting excused from school, the parents can be cited in court, but school officials try to work with families to prevent truancy problems by developing compulsory school attendance contracts for those students.

The Glenwood change, Embray said, adds a proactive step to the process that can help them work with families and students and the issues preventing school attendance that may not be readily apparent.

“We’re trying to see what we can do better in the process to help prior to sending that family and student on to mediation and the courts,” Embray said.

“We wanted to be able to put more effort in on the school side to help families and work with them to get their kiddos to school. And if it does go to mediation and the courts, we can say we’ve exhausted our efforts and there isn’t much else we can do.”

The change also includes the addition of a one time mediation clause; meaning, if a student’s absenteeism results in court intervention then that student will remain on a compulsory attendance contract that will not re-set at the beginning of the next school year.

“If they violate that (attendance) contract anytime after they’ve gone to court once, until they are 16, they go straight back to court,” Embray said.

Embray said there hasn’t been an uptick in absenteeism in the district but rather he felt the schools were just simply following the policy and weren’t looking close enough at the issues behind the absenteeism.

“We stamped a universal protocol on issues that are so individualized sometimes that it’s hard to say one family situation is identical to another. We wanted to be able individualize (the policy) as much as we can.”

Flexibility to work with families on certain factors that impact school attendance will help improve attendance, to be sure, but more importantly the new policy has been drafted to look for patterns of behavior more than incidents.

“We’re looking for the patterns (of absenteeism),” Embray said. “If a kid has mono for three weeks, we’re obviously not going to go to mediation because they’re gone for 15 days. But if the kid has missed the last 15 days of the school year for the last four years, then that might be a pattern of chronic absenteeism and we would address it.”

The Ramily Matters group, a support group that  brings families, students and the school district together monthly to discuss issues affecting all three, could be a key asset in effecting the change in policy moving forward, Embray said.

“The connection we’re trying to make with Ramily Matters is we’re a valuable partner and we can help you and you’re family,” Embray said.