Truancy Report

At the January 18 meeting, the Board of Education received information on truancy in High School District 211. In the District’s efforts to help accelerate lower-achieving students, a practice consistent with Board policy (JEDA-Truancy) has been recognized as counterproductive. The practice involves dropping students from class when they have accumulated a specified number of absences due to truancy.

During the 2005-2006 school year, there were 254 instances where a student was dropped from a class for truancy. Usually, these same students are those in greatest need of academic assistance. Thus, the current policy is not academically helpful.

District administration has been in discussion with Villages of Palatine, Schaumburg, and Hoffman Estates regarding ordinances that address school truancy. Each village has an ordinance, but all are somewhat different. However, all include some form of citation or penalty for truancy. Ongoing discussion with police departments have been productive, and it is anticipated that all village truancy ordinances will be similar by the end of February. Changes being made should allow District 211 to incorporate the issuance of ordinance violation citations for truancy requiring a fine and/or court appearance. Adjudication will occur at the village level, thereby permitting a variety of options to deal with citations and any penalties issued.

A number of suburban communities have truancy ordinances in place and several high school districts have taken advantage of these by incorporating the issuance of truancy tickets into their truancy reduction efforts.

After discussions in Administrative Council, introduction of new administrative truancy procedures are anticipated near the beginning of second semester. Specifically, these new procedures will eliminate the counterproductive practice of removing students from class due to truancy issues, and are all aimed at reducing student truancy and increasing student achievement. (more info)

For additional information, please refer to materials the Board received at its January 18 meting: http://www.d211.org/pdf/truancy_report.pdf