The Green Bay Public School District is taking a different approach to eliminate the truancy rate for students who increase truancy rates. The past strategy used by law enforcement was to give the student and the parent a ticket. Students received a $124 ticket and parent received a $376 ticket. This strategy proved ineffective because it was meaningless to the older students. Therefore law enforcement believed that providing a ticket to students who increase truancy rates in their younger years is more effective.
The school district has decided to provide additional support along with monetary consequences to encourage students who increase truancy rates to attend school. Support for truant students includes counselor intervention. Counselors are responsible for early notification and evaluating if students needs additional support services such as transportation and increasing parental involvement.
The 2012 overall truancy rate for Wisconsin was 9%, while the Green Bay School District had a 11.6% truancy rate. If we flip the statistics, 88.4 % of the students attended school on a regular basis. There is something about a school that will makes a child beg to go to school. That something is the teacher. When teachers and students have positive relationships students are more likely to attend school. Instead of creating a paper trail for students who increase truancy rates, the school district would benefit from promoting positive teacher student classroom relationships. That way truant students would no longer play hide and seek with the school district.
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Dr. Derrick L. Campbell, Ed.D.
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Author of Promoting Positive Racial Teacher Student Classroom Relationships
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