001facilitate nuance and detail. Um, keeping in mind we have a close session after this. So, [laughter] I'll turn it over to Mr. Tu. >> Sounds good. All right. Uh, thanks for having me uh tonight. Um, hopefully you had a chance to review. Otherwise, I know that there's printed copies to follow along. Some of the data slides are they're busy. Uh, so I'll I'll explain kind of what you're looking at, what it means. Um, as it worked out. Uh today uh we've um held our district discipline committee meeting. That's one of the meetings that that we hold uh twice a year to look at trends related to attendance and and discipline. So uh this is top of mind um for us as well. Um tonight really going to walk you through uh a little bit of
002background um around how we think about attendance and talk about attendance. that's changed over the the years. Uh just even how we define it. Um and and what chronic absenteeism is and how that's different than than uh maybe how we've historically looked at school attendance. Uh a little bit about the uh impact from the pandemic and some system changes that occurred uh locally. They're just a just the context for uh how our data got to where it was and kind of kind of where we're at. I want to review um our strategies so you have a good understanding of how we're thinking about approaching um addressing chronic absenteeism with students and families. Um go through our current state data. So where are we at today? How does that compare to where we have been? Um
003and then really any open discussion comments that you have. But absolutely at any time uh see something that doesn't quite make sense or you have more questions about it, we can pause and just talk about it. So um really any meeting that um I have talking about student attendance we anchor around uh this this quote uh this idea of students can only benefit from the instruction supports and interventions they actually receive. That's why school attendance is so important. Um and uh supports and interventions are all sorts of things. uh you think about all the other presenters who've come up to talk about uh mental health supports and and services um you know addressing food insecurity and a random acts of kindness uh uh funds that we have available. Schools really are a hub uh for
004helping kids in so many ways in addition to educating them. Uh and when they're not here, they miss out not just on learning, they miss out on on everything. Uh so we really see attendance as an important thing um with schools. Um historically uh uh and this was true in our district too but very common uh across the country a lot of attention went to uh really just talking about truency unexcused absence kids who were supposed to be at school but they're somewhere else uh they're somewhere where they're not supposed to be. um we really ended up making a shift to um chronic absenteeism. Um because the the effect is the same. Um even if you're out for all sorts of uh excused absences or parent excused absences um you're still missing school. You're still
005missing out on all the things that we have. And um we address these issues differently and I'll get to that part but um you know the the focus on truency is an aspect of what we do but but we look at everything and we're really looking at um kids who are just missing too much uh school. So historical approaches um this was yeah probably 15 years ago there was nearly a sole focus that uh it would be done largely through enforcement. There was and there remains state statutes around compulsory school attendance which outlines all the steps that schools need to take including um ticketing for truency and referrals to human services to to uh get that addressed. Um uh what we've learned um and we've done done a lot of work uh within our county
006uh and with attendance work some national organizations that look at this. It's just not that easy. It's not a absenteeism isn't a technical issue that has a single lever we can pull to address it every time. Um so we've really focused our attention around prevention early intervention intensive effort intensive intervention efforts um coming together with students and families and community partners to support the you know broad range of needs that kids may have. So uh before the pandemic we knew that there are risk factors. So, we've been working on attendance uh uh for quite some time. Um, in fact, there's a statute, state statute uh in Wisconsin that at least once every four years, a county needs to come together um to create guidance around how we're going to handle um actually truency. Uh and
007uh because we're the county seat, we host that that work. Um, so we've studied this for a long time pre- pandemic. All sorts of uh factors that that uh can affect kids and can impact attendance. Family factors, um, student factors, economic factors, school factors. Um, uh, and these challenges just got exacerbated by the by the pandemic. um you know if if [clears throat] kids were having struggles with um you know supervision at at home um you know before the pandemic that became much more difficult when they spent more time there and maybe parent parents weren't weren't there. So um so uh pandemic uh uh impact when we went out so we've we've had this conversation with our community um if you remember every year we go out and get feedback on our student code. We
008always pick a topic and a few years ago we wanted to talk about attendance because we'd really seen chronic absenteeism grow exponentially not just here nationally and um some of the things that we heard was yes those risk factors um you know in addition to uh you know families um uh especially um you know historically marginalized families being impacted disproportionately um deaths within their family um uh you living paycheck to paycheck as a difficulty. Um parents who are having to find work but they needed their kids who are supposed to be online learning actually watching their siblings. Um so it really created uh a challenging time for families um and and um feel like the pandemic was uh hard on everybody. Uh no no one have never found anyone who's like I really enjoyed that
009time. Uh no one like that but for At this time, it is wpping up here in the next couple of minutes. >> Thank you. Have a great evening. >> Yes. Thanks, Mark. >> Um, but the pandemic certainly affected uh some families more than more than others. Um, we uh we know this. So, uh, we're looking at data all the way through uh the pandemic. Um, one thing that we do differently in Lacrosse County, we don't wait every four years. We just have active work going on all the time. We have active work groups. So, uh, that's one of the things that we do differently. Um, every August we get together. Um, we have workg groups and then we get together as a county to to update. >> And that's a state requirement. >> State requirement
010is once every four years. Yeah. We just stay connected. We work well with our uh, area school districts. Yes. >> I maybe you might have mentioned this. I forget, but um I have my notes from back in October, the Wisconsin Oceanian School Boards, our regional meeting was about chronic absenteeism, and they said that I believe districts have to review their policy every two years. >> Uh we so our we update um I'm not sure on that. That could be I haven't seen that. So, in our um in our statutes, I know that we we have the four-year obligation countywide. Our policies uh and guidance gets uh updated annually. Um so, yeah, I can I can look into that, but we update we'd be in compliance with that. We look at it annually. >> We do
011it annually. That's twice the requirements there. >> Yeah. Yeah. And the the four-year requirement is for the schools, the human services, law enforcement, the district attorney's office, whatever. Um they have to get together and and discuss it. And um um other counties I've worked at um have done that on like their their obligatory four-year meeting. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Um and uh and sometimes I mean actually when we had our uh the one up in Tremple County I think it was in 22 um really generated some good conversation and there was a number of efforts that came out after that. But um it's nice to see you guys have committees and that there's a focus that you keep going back at it. So that's good to hear. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um this is one of
012the slides that we shared within the county. This was um during the the pandemic, but um point of this one was it affected everyone, but it affected certain uh groups uh differently, but you know, whether you're economically disadvantaged or not, we saw an increase. So, this the the challenge with chronic absenteeism or the increase in absenteeism really virtually touched everyone. Do you think I mean you talked earlier about a number of um factors that affect uh absenteeism. Um my understanding is that because of the online learning that occurred um you know there requires it's like working at home. You have you can only do it if you're kind of disciplined. If you're not it you you aren't real effective at it. And for these kids that weren't particularly disciplined or weren't necessarily in homes that
013were highly disciplined or as you said the students had to perhaps um care for other siblings or whatever um they fell behind and then coming once they came back to school you don't want to go back to school and then be behind and then further behind. And I think I think there's a whole cohort of kids that uh we we've lost and I I think they're just going to get disconnected from school. I don't I mean once you get so far behind it's just too embarrassing. It's just easier to stay in your basement and play video games than it is to go to school and find out you're really behind all your peers. >> Yeah. No, it has a compounding effect. And it is in that that um basically that when we define chronic absenteeism
014as missing 10% or more of school days in a year, what we what the research indicates um if you miss more than 90% you're just not at school enough to learn everything you need to learn to move smoothly into the next grade. Not that it's not possible, not that you can't make it up, but you know, if you're if you're attending only 70% of the time and you pass that that [snorts] part's good, but you still miss quite a bit of learning. you just don't have the depth of knowledge and um over time that has a wear and tear effect on achievement. Absolutely. Um one of the uh things that we also looked at uh during uh COVID was um just challenges addressing it. Um this was a survey uh just about what parents site
015as concerns that they had. And uh you can see this is very tiny, but way down here there's a lot of things up here, but way down here uh is chronic absenteeism. And there were some shifts that way. Parents saw less value. You know, they saw their kids seemingly making progress in an online environment and and that kind that kind of you know drew on uh their thoughts on the importance of learning. Um, students also realized because we shifted so quickly, they figured out ways to keep up on learning because we had Canvas and lots of online tools that uh made it seem like they're keeping up, but if they weren't logged online uh you know, learning um you know, they're still still missing that. So, that was one of the things that we've been
016really trying to get corrected. Um and we were uh very generous with attendance during uh COVID. We were really looking for evidence that the student was engaged in some way working on work, logging into Canvas online um during that time to really encourage uh engagement. But >> you have a question? >> Yes. >> Um my question was and I've tried to look ahead a little bit, but I don't see anything here in terms of a lack of belonging and that seems to be a big thing now. the more kids belong, the more often they attend, better they learn and so on. And a lack of belonging that must be relatively new thinking within the last two, three, five years. >> Yeah, we've had uh in a few slides I'll talk about some of the strategies
017and some of what we've been talking about. Belonging is a critical component as a like a precursor belonging and engagement a precursor um to improving attendance. and we've got a some examples of how we've tried to address that. >> Kind of brings us full circle to our spotlight this evening about the relationship, the important of relationships that Dr. Sprag talked about that are achieved by that um reading buddies and that belonging piece is so vital. Yeah, I had recently heard belonging described simply as the feeling needed. And if you feel needed at school, you're more likely to show up uh and be engaged. And for a program like Reading Buddies, [clears throat] that really >> makes it clear to those seventh, you're needed. Like you got this big job to do and there's kids relying
018on you. And creating experiences like that really adds to belonging. It doesn't seem like it on the surface, but if you feel needed, that really contributes to that sense. >> Yep. >> Yeah. I would I would quibble with the the Ipsis poll a little bit too actually just that that that top concern although you ask that kind of question like yes people are it's the point of schools of course I'm concerned with that but it's a qualitatively different item than than the rest of what's on the list and I would say if you asked parents if they understood things like learning loss from COVID and absenteeism and teacher salaries and school funding to be a part of right that that being able to prepare young people for for the future like that would that would
019change the results a little bit but >> absolutely >> I'll take it up with NPR IPS. >> Yeah. >> Well, one of the things that we talked about is regular school attendance tackles so many of these things, >> right? >> Um you know, we even share, you know, if you're worried about um child welfare, school's a 40-hour a week safety plan. if you're worried about delinquency. Uh school's a 40-hour a week place where kids aren't getting into trouble and are supervised. Um so there's uh you know again like all the mental health supports and everything else that we have. So it's really making those connections like need to be at school to get all the things that we have. >> So uh one of the other uh things that uh shifted we have no way
020aid to know you know what impact um this had. We have anecdotal um uh experiences with individual kids and families, but really came at a time of social change too. Uh where law enforcement agencies kind of felt like they were asked being asked to move away from any type [snorts] of enforcement and um you know, keep kids out of any type of uh courtroom, whether it's municipal court or uh the the justice system. Um there was a a move to see if we could tackle this challenge through almost entirely voluntary services. Um and for a lot of kids, voluntary services work. Um and I've got a slide that I'll talk a little bit about that. But we would have um some kids where that wasn't an option and and kids missed lots of school. Um
021we would uh hold these county meetings and one of our one of our uh questions would be um how much school is too much school to miss? uh and let the you know we had people from the courts and from the county and uh because we had examples you know is it a is it a week is it two weeks you worried at a month semester we had some kids that that really went silent for years uh and uh you know as a community and as society we've got to decide at what point you know have we exhausted voluntary supports and we need to step in um because we look at you know K12 education It's time limited. We don't give it back on the back end. We don't say, "Well, you know, those three
022years you didn't come. We're going to add a few more at the end and catch you back up. You get what you get." And you don't want, you know, kids to get to the end of the career and look back and say, "Why didn't adults step in and do something about this, especially when they're young, right? It's not not for them." >> What also exacerbates the whole thing, again, the the county and the court system is so punitive. Um, and I I've been in court and seen so many of these cases that come to court and you know, it's oftentimes a single parent working a number of jobs just trying to keep afloat. Now they've got a fine that they got to figure how they got to pay for. And this kid who is just
023so disconnected for mental health, for bullying, for uh not having not feeling part of the school, for being so far behind, it's just embarrassing for all kinds of reasons that they have. Um it it's it's just it's just a sad sad thing and and and dealing with it in that way isn't going to achieve anything because now you're adding burden to the family and the social workers aren't going to drive to your house and pick you up and take you to school. >> And what also goes with that is the state funding for uh what they call youth aids or um serving these kids has stayed flat since the 90s. And so the counties don't have adequate number of staff to deal with all the number of kids, especially when you see these numbers going
024up. So it really creates a system where the counties are saying the schools aren't doing enough and the schools are saying the counties aren't doing enough. So seeing parties coming together to say what can we do and how do we serve these families in a better way is just so vital. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. >> Kind to respond to that too and I know I took a quick glance ahead forward. >> Oh yeah. um see if we're going through some of the change right there, but have you have we by any chance looked into to kind of to address Miss Sukla's point there into having perhaps some kind of volunteers to help get kids to school? Again, I got a lot my notes here from the October session with the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.
025That was a big thing they highlighted, too. I believe it was um I won't actually check which school district it was. I think it was either like Whitewater. I could probably follow up on that, >> but they had a program where they'd have parents volunteer to simply uh help get those kids to school where I mean, mind you, it's all at their own expense, but to those parents that have the time and want to serve their own school district, it provides opportunity to while also kind of helping engage students to the school district as well to help kind of take away from the disconnected. >> I think it was Oter County. I think it was in the Apple area. >> Um, and they have they also had a huge the county got a huge grant.
026So that makes a big difference too. I >> think we have a a version of that that we'll get to here as we as we move forward. So, >> yep. Um so uh you know one of the um one of the things that we talk a lot about is you know striking this balance where you have high expectations and high levels of support and um you know that whole question of accountability and and what should that look like and how do we how do we support is something that we're always always tending with. Um some of the barriers that kids are facing they can't do anything about. Um and and we have limited influence in um too. So uh key strategies and support. So this is one of the ways that we think about uh
027uh attendance actually a lot of different things. Um but as a system um really kind of thinking about it in quadrants. This is not perfect but it helps kind of capture some mindsets. Um you know a low accountability or low expectation low connection support um would be you know we you know it's your job to come to school and if you're not there we're not going to do much about it. and you can virtually expect nothing will change. It's kind of like if nothing changes, nothing changes. That doesn't influence um things. Say our old model was, you know, historical approaches to truency. We're probably a little bit of we have high expectations and if you're not there, we're going to ticket you and we're going to go through the process and and kind of work
028through um upside to this is you can move pretty quick on things. downside is you could destroy a relationship or you or you could be trying to punish a a problem that you don't totally understand. Uh and that's not going to be influenced by enforcement. Um uh another uh ineffective approach to this is kind of the low expectations or high expectations but no accountability but lots of support. Um where um you know it almost creates this dishonest harmony like we want you to be at school. We know you can't be. we're going to provide a lot of sports and give you a lot of time, but functionally these kids are still missing way too much school and it and it's going to hurt them. So, we think the sweet spot in in our work is
029uh kind of this do-with um that we have high expectations, high accountability. We we work with families, we work with uh community partners, um hold people accountable um uh and uh we found this to be uh really the the most effective kind of mindset going into this work. So shared this already. Um uh our Lacrosse County absenteeism committee, we organized ourselves into basically uh three groups of prevention, early intervention and intensive um intervention groups all with their own uh purpose. I'd say the first several years most of our work landed in the prevention early intervention. We could really think through those things. Um our final frontier remains some of the intensive intervention and getting that to work correctly. Um, but if you've ever seen this banner outside our schools that came out of that, that
030was a partnership. So, you can and you probably can't see that from where you're at, but these are all the logos of our Lacrosse County schools. We worked together on it. Um, we had QR codes that took people to their respective schools for registrations. Um, uh, prevention is really what can we do ahead of time, you know, how do we re-engage? Uh the a lot of this is um you know communicating the importance of regular school attendance with families. Um we kind of align it with our code. Dr. Angel has a letter in the front of every code and um uh writes about the importance of of regular school attendance. Um won't uh talk about all these but I'll highlight a few of them. Um we have an MTU partnership. It's called a second chance
031uh rider program. um where if kids miss the first uh bus to school or their car broke down or whatnot, um they can get on any MTU uh in the city and let them know they're a second chance rider and they'll get them to school. Uh so if you missed your bus, don't miss a whole day. Just come, you know, whenever you whenever you get there. Um I think uh Morris was recognized at a board meeting, so that those were incentives at the high school if you remember that. um uh family nights uh uh North Side um was uh uh presented at the most recent national community schools conference about their efforts uh around family engagement morning bingo. They were able to cut their chronic absenteeism in half which is just astounding. Um give a
032short story on uh Hamilton. Uh so they have made tremendous gains um around school attendance and we they had a 21st century grant where we were targeting uh attendance wrote strategies around it and it was targeted intervention and family nights and whatnot and [snorts] after the first year and this this gets to um Mr. Mr. Bagnowvski, your statement about belonging after the first year there's like no change and we met and people are what what happened and uh we began to dig into the data and uh the the uh Hamilton didn't get the change in attendance they wanted. But one shift that they did get in that first year is we went from mostly no call no show uh absences to parent excused. And we felt like the belonging, all the all the uh family
033nights they did, all the engagement and communications uh shifted the school from, you know, families not even letting us know when kids are going to be gone to excusing them too much. And that's a different problem that they, you know, took on. Um so this year they another big push. They created uh these attendance refrigerator magnets um for families to be able to document all their they get 10 parent excuse. They're kind of free of charge, you know, use them for whatever you want. Um but they've got families tracking that and as a result we're starting to see attendance move uh in the right direction which uh we're proud of and I know that know they are too. >> I imagine it's they they would rather be hearing from the parents than nothing at all.
034>> Yeah, that's great. Yep. Yep. So, that was a that was a terrific shift. And then then it came down to parent education on when to send a child to school, how many parent excuses do you have, um you know, if you're not sure what what to do about it. So, um early intervention strategies. Uh so, really before these were strategies before, you know, absenteeism really gets out of hand. Um, all of our schools are doing this, early home visits, you know, we have a good sense after a school year, uh, who needs some contact before the school year. Um, so early home visits before the school year. Uh, we have tremendous partners. all of our youth serving organizations um our system of care and YMCA and Boys and Girls Club and and BA Black
035um all host back to school events uh where we do registrations and communicate when school starts and make sure everyone gets their school supplies. Um so really we've got a whole community, you know, pulling pulling for us. Um in in a lot of this um we switched we used to have just truency letters and they're you know if you ever gotten one or sent one they're pretty straightforward. Your kids's been missing you're truent and here's what here's all the bad things that could happen to you. We moved in early intervention to nunch letters which are essentially hey your students missing a little bit more than [clears throat] we'd like. We'd love to partner with you to understand it. We've got resources to help you and it's really an invitation for families to be able to
036work with us. >> Can Yeah. as a as a recent recipient of a chronic tardiness letter. >> Yeah. >> Uh c could can we see an example of the nudge letters actually because the I asked because the the chronic tardy letter >> Yeah. >> I'm not a proud recipient of it but it's what we're dealing with in my house. Um [laughter] it's very notice of chronic tardies. It's very formal and official looking and um thinking about the impact of different kinds of communication on families who are who may be struggling with attendance for a variety of reasons and and where that communication fits into the response. >> We're proud of how kind that letter is. Dr. Sprag >> say your letter to it. >> It might be different for tardies than we have for absence.
037>> It works as a conversation starter with my daughter. So that's good. >> So this is an example of a nudge letter. We've got some, you know, nice logos on there. And schools can alter this a little bit, but essentially we uh want to highlight how many days. Um this is just an example. So this isn't like a student named Casey or anything like that. Just an example. But concerned about Casey's recent absences. Let's work to get Casey's attendance back on track. So intended to be more friendly than, you know, citing state statutes and progressive ticketing. And >> was that how your letter looked? >> It's similar. It's a I mean, it's a business letter, right? And and it has it has more of a formal header and everything like the >> the box in
038red and everything and and and data down below. It doesn't have all all this on the bottom of it. It's just more of a straight letter with a table documenting my my daughter's tardiness. It may be different for tardies than for absences. Is that that's good feedback though and we would want to approach the issue in the same way. So it's something we can definitely look at. Thank you. >> What's the what's the trigger mechanism? So we are not the tardy. We are the absentee people in our house for mostly medical reasons. >> True. >> This is a safe space too. [laughter] >> We're talking about feelings today. Um >> but I mean who is that an auto trigger? Is that the principal that triggers that? Because a lot of times like for us like
039our principal knew exactly where our child was and why and like there were services that we're not getting from school and >> it's nuance. So this is not this will not just automatically go up because there are good reasons why kids are gone >> and so we don't want to send a nudge letter. You know it' be exact your example exactly. My child's been out ill. We've made it through this. We've been working together on it. Then you get a nudge letter. You're going to be put off by that. you're going to be like, you knew like, you know, so we don't um it's not automatic. Uh we do have a a trigger, attendance triggers for these um and uh we um send up to three um at at certain points, but principles need to
040review those to determine like are there special circumstances that we know about that we're just not going to do a nudge letter. Just wouldn't be wise to do that. >> So I'll talk to our principal about those nudge letters. I think you I I think you even call the parents cuz I know someone. >> Yeah, [laughter] >> you can share that. Yes, you have very safe places. >> Speaking of she said she had a class on one side to the other side in five minutes. So I came to school and showed her I could walk around the whole school in five minutes. >> Um but yeah, we got a phone call and it was it was >> because she had been tardy >> like multiple times in a row in the same class. So the
041call was y was great instead of maybe getting a letter where it was kind of like what's going on. >> Exactly. Yeah. The letters are cumulative. Uh but we do want parents to know and it's important that parents get notifications and sometimes there are errors. So that that is the downside if uh if uh you know error and entry or something like that. But for young kids um parents would want to know if they sent their child to school and they never got there. you know, they would they'd want to know immediately. And so, you know, we taking attendance is important. Same is true for secondary students um who might be out and about or, you know, are testing the, you know, absenteeism process and they, you know, ditch to go with a friend to
042get some donuts or something like that. Parents can be terrific in saying, "Hey, get back to school. Don't do that again." >> So, when do you do or for what situations do you do the early home visits? Uh so those are um gener the way that we have it written is for schools to look at uh students incoming into the year and who was chronically absent that previous year. Um and it and it's basically it falls under this category of uh strategies called um early personalized outreach. And it could be early home visits, it could be telephone call, uh it could be inviting them to one of our community events or registration event. Um so those are all strategies that we have built in that schools uh you know use to to address kids who
043are uh they're not chronically absent yet, but they're at risk for because they've had a history of that. >> Yeah. So, I can gladly say I have never received a nudge letter, [laughter] but but I do know um someone this might be further in the intensive strategies, but when we're doing the home visits or anything like that, too, I know there are some students out there that have not been able to attend too much due to like family issues such as divorced parents. And I mean at least I know personally one person had a really bad nasty case kind of with the judge with family court systems and everything for it too is how exactly do we work in conjunction with let's say um family court or other agencies might be involved towards more so
044like those sticky situations that >> yeah that's um I do have a slide for that can I come back to yeah >> talking about how we navigate that >> um yeah and so out of those attendance meetings sometimes what those emerge uh are barriers and so we try to connect them to services. You know, we've got a broad array of mental health services. If kids are struggling with anxiety or you know sometimes substance use that's we try to make those connections early um to help improve attendance. Um intensive uh strategies um so lot of referrals to community supports um coordination with human services. number of our students who are chronically absent are already in some way system involved. Uh they may have an open case with child protective services um or youth youth justice. Um
045this year uh we piloted at the end of last year. This year every two weeks uh we assemble a chronic absenteeism review team. So we're not quite to the point where we're getting families formally involved in human services. Uh but we have supervisors from child protective services and youth justice and we staff cases that the schools um send really complex cases um and Mr. Man because this might be cases like like you're talking about um uh and out of that we um identify really next steps um and sometimes um those cases are cases where we need engagement. You know there's a family very complex needs but they're not talking with anyone. They're not connected anywhere. they're not answering the door or the calls. So, our strategy is around engagement. Um, sometimes we'll use neighborhood social
046workers or community health workers to make that first connection. Sometimes they need intervention. Sometimes they just need resources um, you know, to address uh, those needs. So, that's, you know, more individualized um, approach for that. Um, we do have um, the ability and intensive uh, intervention. We do do some uh truency enforcement. I'll talk about the scope of that and in and how we how we kind of think about that. Um we do do child welfare referrals um uh to CPS especially when there's a safety issue present. Um we're obligated to um and then we have had some cases uh where um there there is not educational neglect in the children's code uh but there is uh in the criminal code. Uh, and so we've worked with the district attorney and there are some cases
047that are so egregious that the district attorney will do a pre-conference with the family with us to say, "Listen, this is a big deal. You need to we need to work with you to get uh your kids to school." Um, and u less frequent, it it'll go all the way to a referral. Um, but that takes time through the courts. That's not like a you know overnight intervention either. >> Kurt. >> Yeah. are are you aware of or of any data? Um this would so this is hard I guess because it would be on like individual cases where uh some of the more formal interventions uh and things like home visits um and and some of the more face-to-face kind of interventions whether it's through volunteer support services or or the courts or what have
048you where the problem becomes exacerbated. I'm thinking of a situation, you know, where perhaps an abusive relationship and the the parent may have been ignoring or been unaware of the absentee problem, but it it exacerbates it for the for the child when it is brought to attention. >> Um, hard to say because the the the biggest challenge in those cases um and it actually kind of fits with with uh this next slide. um when we've got families with really complex needs where we have suspicions, you know, like that but but no real evidence can't really do anything. Um the the biggest challenge is when uh we lose engagement. Um and we've got a number of strategies. Uh you know, you're talking earlier about, you know, do we have volunteers that go out? We've got contracted
049services. We've moved um resources to support um our system of care. Uh targets um uh chronic absenteeism. That's one of our focus acts. Uh we have dedicated um community health workers who are working on um attendance. It's a strategy that we have and we've got community health workers from the YMCA um who are helping us uh out with that. Um we have uh contract with um uh system of care in black for personalized transportation. I mean we can literally for some students get them doortodoor uh with knock on the door and and assist that way. >> The challenge becomes I think just what you're talking about cases where that door doesn't open anymore. Um and and I've I've gone to homes where there's been um you know a sign up in the window that says
050stop knocking on my door. uh where we're yeah concerned about the welfare of what's going on the other side. Not enough evidence to do it and that that's where um we think um there is a limit to a voluntary approach at some point. You know there's we've got to ask formal systems to be able to step in. >> Any good voluntary system has to have at the end of the continuum holding somebody's feet to the fire. >> Yeah. And I think Dr. Sprag in my experience as a principal I did see a few cases of that where it those students that had, you know, some abuse issues at home generally are at school. My experience, it was a safe place. Um, and I would call about some kind of routine disruption or swearing or something.
051The experience wouldn't go well for anyone and I'd work with the student almost exclusively thereafter. Uh, and kind of tailor the [clears throat] communication home in a way that met the student and parents needs and expectations. Um but those are pretty rare and almost never around truency. Those kids found a way to show up. >> Yeah. I just I mean my concern would be and and again this is completely speculative, right? that even though if if we're making all these interventions and we're seeing statistical improvement, right, that if the possibility exists for those who are not seeing the improvement to actually be seeing a worsening of their of their situation, that can be hidden by the by the data and you can feel like everything is hunky dory, right? And and you're actually >> ending
052up continuing or exacerbating already bad situations. So that that was kind of my concern, but I I I agree that it's probably very very rare that that's the kind of circumstance >> those folks are usually well on the radar. >> Adam, >> right? I can speak of some personal experience, some situations kind of like this from my own childhood too is that there's only so much that a school district can do. A lot of it is as you said CPS or going back to the law where we cannot exactly have a collaborative approach to get those kids to a school. It has to be a direct intervention not from us but from a law enforcement entity to um let's say if it's a parent who's not allowing their kid to even enter into school. >>
053Mhm. >> So so there's really only so much we can do here and you know >> can't be everything to everybody. >> Right. I think how we think about it now I think this chart here really helps us diagnose how to approach an issue where historically we just kind of truency ticket our way out of it. I think we're much more nuanced now. >> Yeah. We're using this to help kind of calibrate all of our system partners around making sure it's a right intervention for the right situation. And in all these cases, we need to work with the family a little bit to understand. So there's again uh the the tradeoff uh and the old way we used to do it does delay a little bit of time till we understand what those needs are.
054But uh this a simple way again not perfect but a way to kind of organize people's thoughts. We do have some kids who don't have any barriers to coming to school and if there's high readiness for change will they want to be there they're already attending you know we're not worried about those kids. Um for the kids uh who have a low uh engagement um readiness for change um we try our school-based interventions and supports but we found um that uh if we're going to uh ticket it will be uh just in these two quadrants. um you know once once uh we've determined [snorts] like there there is you know we've kind of evaluated there's no mental health need there aren't technical barriers to getting to school there's no complex issues um during that period
055of time where we did no ticketing we would have families that are like I need help holding my kid accountable and I think you should go answer to the courts and we had the courts saying hey where'd all the kids go I used to work with all these kids we do you know deferred agreements and things like that and so we're getting back to that um uh you know we're this is not a main part of our strategy but kids who kind of fit into that profile um it's been helpful >> when you say we're getting back to that so there there's more involvement with the courts >> yes yep yeah we're kind of reccalibrating around this um technical barriers to attendance and this does come up um these are often the easiest to fix
056a ride they live a little too far they've got to watch uh you know actually our two-tiered busing system has addressed this. But when we got feedback, a lot of our uh secondary students said, "I've got friends who have to watch their siblings in the morning while their parents go to work." So, the two-tiered busing um has [snorts] um helped with some of that. Uh but these are I need an alarm clock would be a technical sort of fix. Um by and large, when we address technical barriers and there's high readiness for change, those kids are right back. And we've got lots of ways to get kids to school. We've got um you know bus passes, the max passes on MTU if that's how they'd prefer to get to. That's a small investment for a
057good return. Um but we do have some kids um uh who fall into that um kind of that low engagement and we're working on engagement. Um but once we've kind of taken care of that, we've tried system of care. If they're still not attending, then we'll attempt some truency enforcement, see if it has an effect. complex is the most challenging. It's kind of the last front frontier. I mean, these are uh issues with kids and within homes that are dynamic. They involve sometimes the other kids in the home. They involve caregivers or circumstances. Um these are challenging and and you're just not going to ticket those problems out of people's lives. And we really feel like these complex challenges are things that we need to partner with. And um when we exhaust all of our
058supports, we'd think that this is a place where formal systems could step in. Um, and this idea of early intervention first, um, and not for everything and not forever. Like eventually we've got to, um, be able to step in and and, um, try to try to influence behavior through >> these are the families that when they get a letter from the courts or the county or the schools, it goes in the garbage because it's never going to be good news. >> Yeah. >> Um, and so, um, yeah, you have to find different ways to engage them and and connect with them. Yeah. >> I mean, even if you find them, they're like, "No, just throw it in the garbage." >> Yeah. >> What What are you going to do? >> Yeah. Tickets are not effective.
059They don't attend the municipal hearing. And so, okay. Current state. So, where are we at? What does all this mean? So, uh this is attendance data uh for just first semester ending uh in January, January 19th. Um this first look is just an example. Uh we don't even spend a lot of time on this but this is your average daily attendance rate um for us and we are within 02% of the state average. Um and we used to look at attendance this way and you could you could look at this and say ten is pretty good. You know 90 93.4% that's a pretty high attendance rate. Um you might be satisfied with that. So, this is one of the reasons why we don't just look at average daily attendance because hidden in that uh are
060uh some of the same kids who are missing too much school and it and it has an impact and and you'll probably be able to as we go through this you'll be able to make uh connections between some of our reference groups and some of the struggles we've had in terms of achievement growth, closing gaps, things like that. So uh so this is our data chronic absenteeism uh by year over years. Um uh so uh kind of precoid I think I've got I didn't put it in here but I think we're at like you know just 16 and a half% I think was 20 at 2018 19. Um anyway we're closing the gap. And so the good news is uh we've got multiple years where we've got more kids uh in school uh on time
061in class the whole time. That that that is a good thing. Uh this comes in the context of where we've even made some adjustments um especially at the elementary school where um up until this year we had a pretty generous um tardy policy at the elementary school. Um and we've narrowed that to you got to be there with first 30 minutes. uh and and despite that those changes that got well communicated, we're we're seeing uh movement in the right direction. Um chronic absenteeism data is uh tricky because this will change. Uh I if uh that 19.2% could uh be alleviated if a bad flu came through a school and put a bunch of kids out. I mean, you're you're talking about even singledigit days where they get to the next month. um it it could
062reduce a big flu comes through it could increase um but over the over the average uh of the year we uh will be monitoring that. So Kurt, sorry before you go on. Um, so we we don't obviously don't have the same data uh going back to the dark days of truency tickets and everything, right? But just anecdotally, I mean, I'm sure you've seen like where did we sit comparatively? So like I think I asked a similar question when we were talking about our disciplinary system, right? Like >> tell me why what we're doing now is better through that data. like were we were we significantly lower in these pre-COVID years and that we're getting back down to in terms of chronic absenteeism under this more kind of holistic systems of support approach than we were
063with truency tickets. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's a that's a good question. Um I I do know um yeah, it's a good question. I don't want to don't want to speculate too much if you don't have the number. >> Well, I'd say the benefit of our current current approach is uh the upside is um we do preserve relationships uh with families differently than than we we probably lost uh some relationships, you know, through a enforcement first strategy. Um, I could imagine some families felt like, gosh, if you only asked me what was really going on at home, you'd have a good, you know, and it doesn't excuse it, but it helps explain it. We can do some things. Um, I I do think it helps with that. Um, I do think we're trending in the right
064direction. Um, you know, we've been able to address some of the, uh, increase um, since the pandemic or from the pandemic, uh, using that strategy. So, I feel, you know, confident about that. Um again there was a time where we didn't look at chronic absenteeism. Uh also you know so it was we just looked at it differently you know we were comforted by a high average daily attendance which we could do today and you know >> no I I think those are all great points and especially just like that the the value isn't just numerical. It's not it's not quantitative in terms of are they in school. It's it is a better relationship across a a huge number of families potentially. Right. And and that over time is more helpful and and more meaningful for
065for you know welding a community together. I think >> while relationships are certainly something we want to preserve and promote. Um we didn't choose you know relationship building strategies because it made us feel good. It's because that's what the research said worked best and truency ticketing was never the way that worked best. And so the thing that we're relying on now is an active engagement around these other relationship building strategies, family engagement strategies. And so we did those things before too. We're just very intentional about it in a way that we weren't historically. >> How do we when you sit and talk to your peers and the other districts from the area, is their approach different than ours? Are they taking similar approaches to ours? because I do have a, you know, uh, city attorney
066in the house that does deal with truency tickets in other areas. So, just trying to gauge their approach in the area. Is ours different? And I think it maybe gives at least the public and some context to what we're talking about as well. >> Yeah. So, um, the guidance that we send, we finalize as a committee. Uh, that gets sent to school districts. Um, depending on the school district, their board needs to pick that up and do policy work around that. But I'd say generally speaking with our community partners um the work that we did with attendance works is what got embedded um in in uh their school district. So Lacrosse County um school districts um uh had utilized a lot of the recommendations and supports. Um we were the only school district that moved
067away from uh truency ticketing enforcement. um other communities preserved that um you know through through the pandemic. Uh so I know that that was one one thing that was different in some of the outline communities. Our access to resources and commitment to family resources is also you know magnitude greater than our peers in the area as well. We've made a much more conscientious effort to support the various range of our students needs. So that a little bit different too than other communities. >> So your takeaway we're in we're heading in the right direction which is >> very much so. >> Yeah. >> Um so these next slides um so what what I did is pulled out all of our students. Um so I have to give you a little bit of context so you know
068what you're looking at. Um these are this will be every student that touched our district this year. This is active students. This is inactive students. they might have been with us for one day uh and didn't come to school and they're going to have a 0% uh attendance rate. Uh so it captures everything. Um ended up grouping these um in these uh 10% uh deciles. So uh up here you can see 0% 0% represents literally 0% all the way up to 9.99%. So just so you could see how things um kind of break down. Um the highlighted the 90 and 100% is really where we want to see kids. Uh we'd like to see kids 90% or better uh because that that gives them the best chance to learn everything they need to to move
069smoothly into the next grade level. Um some of the students in these um groupings are maybe a half a day away from being in the next one or vice versa. So anyway, th this will this will change just so you have that that context. Um, so 80.8% attend school 90% or better. That's terrific. Um, uh, only 3.6% less than 70%. And this gets in, I'm not saying 70% should be our goal. It's not about lowering expectations, but, um, it's a small percentage of students that are missing, you know, 30 30% or more of time. And you'll see as we get into this, and this is how we're kind of thinking about strategies, like who do we focus on? When's the turning point? You know, the the wear and tear effect of missing too much school.
070When when do we really see that escalate from one grade level to another? So, this is by gender. Um, there a little difference there. And if you have questions on this or you have comments, I'll just click through it. >> There's not a lot of difference between gender. Yeah. >> All good. >> Yeah. >> It's all It's nice to see the raw numbers, too, because in in those percentages when you're thinking about, you know, 93.4% >> Yeah. >> attendance. Well, how many students is 6.6%. >> It's a fair amount. Yes. >> People who are really missing out. Yeah. >> Yeah. Uh so this by race, ethnicity. Um so got reference groups that are over represented uh in this. Um are two or more races in our school district? It's mostly um students uh black and
071caucasian or black in another uh race. Um we had good conversation around this today. The outcome of our discipline committee meeting. there's some interest in bringing together a work group to focus specifically. Um I probably wouldn't be surprised. Um we have um some discipline data that's also disproportionate in that way and we really need to bring a community uh together to work on that. So >> thanks for acknowledging that. Yeah, we've been looking at disproportionality for a long time and hoping that kind of universal strategies, you know, for all students might move the needle. And I think we're recognizing we need very culturally specific strategies to make culturally specific differences. Uh so this is uh by disability. Uh so these are all categorical uh areas. Um I can I'll just go across the top and
072reference them for you. Uh so autism and then uh emotional behavioral disability then hearing impaired and then intellectual disability learning disability other health impairment which is typically like ADHD I'd say most mostly um you know that referral um oi is orthopedic impairment um significant developmental delay speech and language >> [clears throat] >> students without disabilities, traumatic brain injury, and a visual impairment. So, you can see the distribution. >> Well, the number of students that are 60% or lower in attendance is a small percentage. That's over 200 kids in our community. >> I mean, that's a that's a real number. >> Absolutely. Yeah. [snorts] >> Yeah. I think when we were looking at discipline or at attendance differently uh last year, it felt overwhelming. The number of kids that we would have had to deal with
073was probably like 2,000 kids. You know, if we looked at everyone who was at this like threshold we were considering. Looking at these percentiles, it almost makes it it makes it much more manageable. Like you can look at [snorts] even if we just worked on under 50%, right? Let's start somewhere. Let's do a really good job with a 100 kids and maybe we'll really move the needle and really make some traction. And you know, if we can work on a hundred kids that are in third grade or below and set up patterns and habits that last for a lifetime, you know, maybe we work ourselves out of a job in that particular area. Uh and so looking at it this way has made the work more manageable [clears throat] when we start to isolate kind
074[snorts] of critical points. >> What what were TBI and V? saying >> um traumatic brain injury and visual impairment. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. And there is some uh connection too to school discipline. I mean this captures absence for any reason. So these aren't kids who uh are just staying home. We might have asked them to stay home because of something that happened at school. that would also count >> some of the I know of some families not in our district but they have uh students with pretty severe autism and um sometimes they're non-verbal and so their behavior their language comes out as behavior and so their parents are getting calls pretty regular to come get the students and so um I can see where that um adds up because it's really it's difficult to
075have that student in the classroom and manage a classroom and help all the other students in that Mhm. >> get their education without disruption. Um but then the student isn't there to get their education. >> Yes. >> This doesn't include like the uh Kulie virtual academy at all, does it? >> We're I do have a slide with schools in there. Next. >> Yeah. Or in >> does include them. >> Keep on asking question. >> Oh yes. Yes. Does this data include [laughter] >> Yeah. This would include all the students in the district. Yeah. and that we're just looking at different different cuts of the data. >> We look seem have a habit of asking questions as they're about to be answered. The next slide probably. >> Yeah. No, that's all right. >> Attendance at CRVA
076is often on measured based on like weekly progress. So like you benchmarks, hitting your assigned required meetings, you know, so it's not really maybe a daily attendance, but it's if you're meeting your benchmarks and thresholds for success. are we may not have this information to hand but are is the enrollment at CRVA disproportionately representative of of say students with disabilities or or another another group >> I don't believe so when I I can look really quickly but my understanding of it it was typical to the district but I'll take a peek uh schools will come up. >> The last one. Yeah. Uh you don't have to go back. Um >> it'd be interesting and I don't need to see this data, but if you took out the amount of time those this group especially is
077are missing school for support services or appointments that are around um things that the district hasn't offered. It' be interesting to see how much of that would alleviate some of these absentes, >> right? um just to see like is this trending because it's >> choice or it's because hey we're getting services to to support these types of needs. >> Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. And for some students with really comp complex uh health issues or mental health issues. Yeah. They've have routine appointments. I mean they're legitim they're there's good reason for them to be gone and it's just >> what it what it is. They need that care to be taken care of. >> Something district doesn't offer. It's not, you know, it's they're not meeting the same thresholds and they're getting outside care to make sure
078that they're getting what they need. So, >> absolutely. >> Okay, these they're getting busier here and smaller. Uh, but this is by grade level. So, you can just take a look at how you're 90% plus. So, this is cumulative changes over time from um prek to uh grade 12. But kindergarten 4K and preK are voluntary. So they're not considered truent or anything. Right. >> Right. But we will mark attendance. >> Absolutely. Need to keep track of it. But just for legal purposes, they're in a different category. >> K4 is different. >> It's nice to see senioritis is still a thing. >> Yeah. I have a really important question. Yeah. Is there still senior skip day [laughter] >> for legal reasons? No. I'm going try and nip >> the official answer. >> No, >> they don't
079talk about senior skills. >> I can tell you. >> Okay. He [laughter] wouldn't be showing up here yet. Typically, they wait for a warm day. >> Okay. Well, yeah, I'll I'll keep my eye on it. [laughter] >> So, one of the conversations we're having with our community partners, I mean, if you draw drew a circle around this young group here, uh, you know, it's manageable. I mean, we're we're really not talking about that many students. And then that, you know, kind of what we've shared earlier, the cumulative effect or the wear and tear effect. Um, you know, at some point kids who miss a lot of school begin to realize I am behind my peers and school's not fun and I'm in a difficult spot and I'm always needing individual in, you know, help and
080and um yeah, it becomes discouraging um over time. So, one of the things we're talking about is if we could intervene being early and do it really well for our, you know, maybe our K5 students um with supports, could we age out of some of these challenges later? >> Yeah. Teachers used to say in third grade, you can see it in the kid's eyes if he's not he or she is not reading at the same grade level as his his or her peers. I mean, they they said you can definitely see the kid just says a I'm out of this. I'm not with the other kids. >> Just another way to look at it. Um, so this gets into our elementary schools with the exception of CRVA just included all of CRVA. So that's every
081student that's enrolled there. The characteristics of CRVA um pretty similar in terms of um ethnicity uh higher rate of poverty um substantially it's about 70% free and reduced lunch compared [snorts] to 48% for the district and then low special education so 5% compared to 18% for the district. So kind of a unique combination of characteristics. >> I'm a little surprised about the socioeconomically disadvantaged. Are there district or other supports that they get for being able to access reliable internet and have their technology working? >> Yep. Absolutely. Yep. They're provided all the resources they need to connect on a regular basis. We'll keep I don't want to rush you, but we do have another close session, so I want to make sure we don't >> secondary schools. >> Yeah, we're rushing you. >> I want to
082go home at some point. >> Wait a minute. Wait a minute. >> I want to rush you, but hurry up. [laughter] >> There you go. You read my mind. >> There's secondary schools to look at it. And again, you know, this 80%, you know, you're really in a semester one, you're talking, you know, potentially a day or two making a difference. So, >> I'm just trying to think middle school that leads that feeds into the high school that there's a relationship between those uh statistics. [clears throat] >> Yeah, that's all the data slides I have. I want to give you an opportunity to any other questions or discussion that you'd like to have. I just think this is really great and it's super important to take such a detailed look at it. I mean, I
083you like like everyone here probably was raised in a time when like perfect attendance was a thing we like talked about and it was celebrated and and it's only like now at a distance of years I'm like yeah that was that was easier for me to achieve than than for how many people around me that I could not necessarily see and and the resulting stigma that many people must have felt and and we have these cultural tropes about you no more teachers dirty looks and and nobody likes school and and that comes from someplace. And this is maybe one of those areas that it comes from when you when you don't think carefully about how how you're meeting people with different circumstances as a school district, as a teacher, as a grade, as you know,
084what are your approaches to to this kind of question about absenteeism and what does that do to kids differently? Yeah, I think we feel really comfortable about our school district responses. Um, we're excited about where the data is headed. Um, definitely feels different and in our, uh, communities that have the highest needs at Hamilton and North Side, we see some great signs of success already. Uh, the outstanding place where we're still working is those kind of formal supports for students where everything we've tried, we've exhausted, hasn't worked. How do we ensure that those students get the help they need um when voluntary supports aren't working anymore? >> Families even not just students. >> Yes, absolutely. >> So, I attended at the convention a workshop on attendance and one of the things that they it talked
085about lots of things, but they it kept going back to what are you as a board doing about it? What are your policies? What are you measuring? How are you determining if you need to put additional resources to this? And so um I think as we look at our policies going forward um we don't get this data in any of our policies review. So do we need I think one of the things we as a board want to think about is do we have policies that need we need to update so that we look at this regularly and monitor this regularly. Um and and how do we do this in a again in a collaborative way so that we get we don't just say improve it like we what do we have to do to
086improve it? we as a because the board is part of the solution. So I think for us to get the data is interesting and tells us something but if we just say this is enough and we don't put this into our future conversations on an ongoing basis I think we're missing an opportunity >> like to respond to that in a way. So of course RE3 involve citizenship did involve um the kind of attendance to chronic absism. Is there anywhere else of which we might want to touch perhaps when it comes to our next agenda planning to maybe take a look at including this data elsewhere or maybe just adding this as an indicator seeing some of the data we see here >> I imagine this report will come back now as R3 right this comprehensive
087it'll be an end of year look you know as opposed to a mid-year look but we'll have chronic absenteeism for the board as a part of results policies now >> but I I would also push back and say that as was part the presentation earlier. There's so many facets that affect absenteeism for it to just show up in R3. It it might we might think about it showing up elsewhere as well. I just I don't want to just say, "Well, R3 and we'll look at it a year from now like where else could it show up and should it show up and what should we be doing as a board?" Did you have something, Jim? >> Well, I just think that right now you're looking at a lot of different avenues to improve in attendance
088and I I pat you on the back saying good job. keep going down that road and if it changes then what do we have to do differently or whatever but right now I think you're on a good trajectory. >> Yeah. Could easily fit into OE1 instructional program. Absolutely. >> And again I think I I appreciate you as staff doing that but I I also want to say we as a board have a responsibility as well. And um if this isn't part of our um policies we should be looking at how do we add that in there so that we are doing what we should be doing. May I volunteer maybe take a look at some of those maybe look at one one super tent see if there's ways we can integrate this possibly bring as
089a discussion item another time. >> Absolutely. >> That'd be something the board would be interested in. >> Yes. >> Worth the chat. So >> okay, >> other comments, questions? >> Thank you for your work on this. >> Thank you. >> Okay. With that, Lacrosse Board of Education will consider a motion to move into close session Monday, February 2nd, 2026 immediately following the board of education workshop at Central High School room 232 pursu pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.85 85 PN1 PNE for the purpose of deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public properties, the investing of public funds or uh conducting other specified public business wherever competitive or bargaining reasons require close session to wit property acquisition. Do we have a motion to do so? >> So moved. >> Second. [laughter] >> Second. >> All those uh
090roll call >> good symmetry too. >> Dr. Sprag was that your motion and Mr. Mr. Mer, your second >> that way. Y [laughter] >> All right. So voting Mr. Alberts. >> Hi. >> Mr. Bneski. >> Hi. >> Miss Books. >> Hi. >> Dr. Garcia. >> Hi. >> Mr. Jackson. >> Hi. >> Mr. Ma. >> Hi. >> Dr. Sprag. >> Hi. >> Miss Sucla. >> Hi. >> Okay. Give you a few minutes to turn the TVs off and all those kinds of good things. >> [music]