Chronic Absenteeism: The Every Student Succeeds Act requires the school district to report students who are chronically absent each year. Students must attend class for at least half of the instructional day to be considered present. In addition, school districts are required to report students who are absent at least 10% (18 absences) of the time. The total number of chronically absent students will be included on the school report cards.
Truant: A truant is a student that has three (3) consecutive unlawful/ unexcused absences or a total of five (5) unlawful/unexcused absences. The student must be between six to seventeen years of age.
Habitual Truant: A habitual truant is a student 12 to 17 years of age that has been identified as a truant, fails to comply with the intervention plan, and accumulates two (2) or more additional unlawful/unexcused absences.
Chronic Truant: A child ages 12 to 17 years who has been through the school intervention process, has reached the level of a “habitual” truant, has been referred to Family Court and placed on an order to attend school, and continues to accumulate unlawful absences.
The district utilizes a written intervention plan for improving student attendance. The purpose of the plan is to link students with attendance problems and their families to all appropriate school and community resources.
Once a student is identified “truant”, school officials are required to immediately intervene to encourage the child’s future attendance. After determining the reasons for the student’s continued absence, school officials are required to work with the child and the parents to develop a written intervention plan to address the student’s continued absence. When developing the intervention plan, school officials may determine that the student and the family need additional services that the school is not equipped to provide. If this is the case, a team intervention approach may be used to formulate the intervention plan. At this point community professionals may become involved. Team members may include representatives from social services, community mental health, substance abuse and prevention, and other persons deemed appropriate.
The intervention plan must include reasons for the unlawful absences; actions to be taken by the parent or guardian and student to resolve the causes of the unlawful absences; documentation of referrals by the school to any community based service providers; actions to be taken by the school; actions to be taken should unlawful absences continue; and guidelines for making revisions to the plan.