The Safety and Licensing Committee met 07/09/2025. Over an hour of the meeting was taking up with a discussion about the Appleton Area School District’s request for the City of Appleton to reinstitute a truancy ordinance. AASD Superintendent Greg Hartjes brought in three AASD staff members to give speeches asking for the truancy ordinance to be reinstituted and then spent around 40 minutes answering questions from the committee members.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Superintendent Hartjes provided an updated version of the flowchart showing the District’s attendance support process which was a little easier to follow than the version provided at a previous meeting and also included definitions of various acronyms and terms used on the chart.
Superintendent Hartjes then had three AASD staff members speak on how they provide attendance support to students and the need for a truancy ordinance.
Will Xiong Dean of Students at West High School said that they believe every attendance situation is unique. He meets with students and families so that they can dialogue, build trust and help solve the situation. Additionally, his department partners with the school counselor, the school resource officer, and the school psychologist all of whom hold the hope of graduating all students at West. Beyond that, they conduct home visit, work with outside resources, and partners with Outagamie County Youth and Family Services and the Boys and Girls Club Truancy Reduction and Assessment Center as well as agencies that provide mental health support in an effort to get kids in school.
Wendy Falk is a school counselor at West and the counselor liaison leading all of the high school counselors in AASD. She described her job thusly, “A school counselor typically meets with students individually and in small groups, to provide social and emotional support as well as instruction and executive functioning, coping strategies, problem solving. It’s completely natural for a school counselor to provide classroom instruction regarding lifelong social, emotional, academic, and career-based skills, in addition to meeting with our colleagues, our parents, and community members regarding the well-being of our students and how we can build on the well-being of our students.” She viewed each moment as an opportunity for engaging with a student and providing mental health supports for students.
She said that a recommended case load for a school counselor was 250 students per counselor, but the average caseload for AASD school counselors was 400. They didn’t even start out focusing on student’s learning needs, believing instead that the needs laid out in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs needed to be met before learning could be focused on. She went on to say, “We also worry about unconditional positive regard, which means that no matter who you are, no matter where you come from, regardless of what has happened or what you’ve done, every single person, every single person, deserves a trusted adult who will listen with caring, compassion, and respect.”
She noted that school counselors were not therapists who could diagnose and treat mental illness and they did not provide the same services as clinical therapists.
Despite success with some students, overall AASD had a chronic truancy rate of 40% at the end of the 2024-2025 school year. She also noted that the Youth Risk Behavior Survey showed, “51.6% of high school students experience anxiety, 35% experienced depression, 18.6% of Wisconsin’s high school students contemplate suicide, 14.9% of those have an active plan to carry out the suicide.” Per Ms. Falk, if those percentages were applied to AASD high school students, “this means that currently we have 2,488 students experiencing anxiety. We have 1,707 experiencing depression. We have 907 contemplating suicide, and 727 students who are actively making a plan for suicide. How many of our chronically absent, 40% students fall into those categories? What scares me is, I don’t know, and I think we really need to be thinking about that.”
Ryan Marx a science teacher told the committee they do everything to make sure they have successful students. He told the committee, “We need the students in class, and that is a no brainer.” He felt that being able to give a truancy citation was necessary to help some students be successful. “We found out during COVID, students need to be in school. Okay? I have a son that that has depression issues, and you know, if he could, he would stay at home and but both of his both of his parents are teachers, and we do not allow it, but some people do, but we need a final step that we can, you know, ensure that these students are coming to school to be able to see the counselors, be able to get the help they need.” He finished up by saying that with many students lesser consequences like detention or suspension didn’t work, and a truancy citation was needed as an option.
Beyond those statements made by AASD staff members, the committee asked questions of AASD representatives.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 4) asked if students and parents not coming to school or being reachable was not already a social services issue or a legal issue of some sort. “I mean, it feels, at a minimum, like there’s a welfare check safety issue. Is that something that the city is involved in as far as the police department or the school district with county services? Is there absolutely nothing?”
Superintended Hartjes indicated his understanding was that welfare checks could not be used for school attendance issues. There was a state truancy law on the books that applied to parents; however, per Superintendent Hartjes, “We’ve been told not to use that. We’ve been told that it will not be prosecuted by Outagamie County, and so we haven’t gone in that direction.” He did not know the reason why Outagamie County would not enforce the state truancy ordinance.
Alderperson Van Zeeland noted that the City of Brookfield recently had a truancy ordinance come before its Common Council but the Superintendent of the public schools there declined to move forward with it. She read from a news article quoting the school’ Chief Strategy Officer saying, “’It was mistakenly added to the agenda. Our district leadership to team did not support moving forward with the truancy ordinance,’ noting that there is no research that suggests issuing student citations has a positive impact on re-engaging students.”
Superintendent Hartjes said that AASD was very different from Brookfield which was the most affluent district in the state. AASD looked more at Green Bay, Oshkosh, Sheboygan, and Janesville which are districts with similar populations with high levels of poverty.
Alderperson Van Zeeland asked if it would not be more difficult on a student from a disadvantaged background to receive a ticket.
Superintendent Hartjes responded they hoped a student never had to pay a ticket. The purpose of issuing a ticket was to get the student and family to engage, but it didn’t mean that the student would have to pay it depending on how it was adjudicated.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) asked about the difference between a County Truancy Referral versus a potential city truancy citation. AASD Attendance Coordinator Stacey Nitka responded that a county referral was focused on providing support to the student and family and seeing what sort of resources the family needs and might be available. A citation would be different than that. It would be a penalty that the student would have to pay or serve depending on the disposition.
The state truancy law was directed toward parents, and at the elementary level attendance issues were parent-led. However, at the high school level, the parents were often asking for help and saying they could not get their children to go to school. Per Superintendent Hartjes, “at the high school level, we’ve never considered anything around a ticket for a parent, just because we know that we’re trying to build relationships with parents to support their child. And as you can imagine, when we look at a student, and if we know that their challenges are maybe AODA issues in the house, might be homelessness, a citation isn’t going to work. That’s not what they need.”
There was discussion about what exactly AASD was looking for in the dispositions provided for in an ordinance. Assistant City Attorney Darrin Glad told the committee, “See how there’s multiple layers of discretion involved in the process from whether the district wants to move forward with pursuing a ticket, then the police officer has discretion whether to issue a ticket, then the prosecutor on how to handle the ticket and what dispositions are available and what are appropriate in a given case. And then the courts ultimately make the decision as to what the disposition is, and that includes the fine as well.”
That didn’t seem to align with the previous truancy ordinance Appleton had, and there were questions about would this ordinance be applicable to all 700 students who have attendance issues or only the 30 or so who are not able to be reached by any other intervention method. It seemed that AASD planned to only use an ordinance against the 30 most problematic cases [but I don’t understand how an ordinance could be written that would apply only to those cases and not a larger number of students.]
Alderperson Fenton asked if AASD had workshopped any potential penalties associated with a truancy ordinance. Her perception was that most municipal truancy ordinances were based on the state truancy laws which “are really pretty punitive.” She was concerned about creating a situation where a student who needed to work to contribute to their family had their driver’s license taken away and then could not work. Superintendent Hartjes noted that fewer and fewer students were even getting their driver’s licenses and AASD provided multiple options for students who needed to work as well as covering the cost of Valley Transit passes year-round for students in 6th-12th grade. He did not, however, give an up or down answer on what sort of penalties AASD envisioned being associated with a truancy ordinance.
The previous truancy ordinance and the truancy court that sprang up from that, was brought up and Superintendent Hartjes commented, “[W]hat is interesting to me is that the perception in the community about the work that was done six and seven, eight years ago is that it was all bad, and that that’s not necessarily case. And I think a lot of that is just how it was portrayed in the media. There were a lot of kids who were successful because they were supported. But I agree with you 100% there’s a there’s a lack of trust right now.”
Alderperson Van Zeeland disagreed that the perception of truancy court had been driven by the media, and thought there were people who had real, valid concerns. She wanted to hear from parents who needed help for their children and find out what they thought would work. “When the ordinance was in place, as it was before, there were concerns. Even if many students did feel supported, there were some real serious issues. […] I’d like to hear from the perspective of the parent who needs help and find out what they need. Do they think a citation is going to be helpful? I’d like to hear that. Do they think that their student would show up because of the monetary penalty?”
Superintendent Hartjes said that he thought a trial period for an ordinance would be important so that they could see how it works and provide a report on how it was functioning.
Mr. Marx, the science teacher, briefly spoke of the benefit of the old truancy court, “I’ve been here 27 years, and I know we don’t want to go to the past, but I know firsthand many, many students, way, way, way more students, that the old ones saved, legit save their lives, and I could bring them in, have them talk, but many students that they saved, brought back to school, or else they were involved in drugs, involved in all kinds of stuff, but that truancy citation was the wake up call that they needed.”
Ms. Falk, the school counselor, also said that she interacted with parents who were having issues getting their children to go to school and who were very frustrated to find out there were no legal options to fall back on to push their kids to go.
Alderperson Van Zeeland finally straight out asked, “[D]oes the school district have a position on which dispositions this city council should be looking at?”
Superintendent Hartjes responded that AASD didn’t have the authority to decide what the dispositions were but that they could look at what other districts are doing and share that information with the committee.
Police Chief Polly Olson also noted that there was a stakeholder meeting on the matter scheduled for August 7th during which they would be discussing how responding to truancy cases could look like as they went through the court system. After that meeting happened, the committee would discuss the issue further.
[Although citing parents for their children’s attendance issues doesn’t seem to be on the table, I would be interested in seeing a parent-component included in an ordinance. It’s difficult for me to believe that AASD has a 40% chronic truancy rate but parents have no responsibility for that whatsoever. It’s also difficult for me to believe that there are around 30 truant students with whom AASD has been able to make no contact and the parents are completely blameless. If a truancy citation could be used as a kick-in-the-pants for some students; I don’t know why it couldn’t be used as a kick-in-the-pants for some parents as well. I think it could be beneficial if it could be used as a tool to bring parents into the process and make sure they are playing an active role in making sure their child goes to school.
Additionally, the discussion brought up an interesting philosophical question about what the relationship of school staff should be toward students. During her comments, Ms. Falk told a story about a specific student she had worked with. While telling that story she stated, “When the student came to us at West last year, she sat in my office on her first day, and I told her that we see our students and staff as family, that everyone belongs to the family, and we don’t always like what everybody in the family does, but they’re still part of the family, because families work together, problem solve together, we celebrate and cry together, but most importantly, we grow together.”
I find it problematic for school staff to view children as their “family”. Specifically for counselors I would hope that there are professional guidelines about how personally and emotionally invested you should become with your clients. But, even for school staff in general, it is problematic if they are viewing the students as their family because doing that sets up a foundation for staff members to start trying to take on the authority and responsibilities of parents. They may start doing that for students whose parents are clearly dropping the ball and not carrying their duties out well, but once someone starts out on that path, it’s easy for them to end up thinking they know better than any parent, even the parents who are not clearly failing.
Even in respect to parents who are not performing their duties well, it would probably be better in the long term if they could be induced to start parenting their children instead of the school just stepping in and taking on those parental responsibilities because the more the schools do that the more people will end up taking advantage of their largesse. No wonder AASD has a deficit given that it keeps performing the responsibilities of parents. Instead of taxpayers providing free lunch, free breakfast, and Valley Transit bus passes to students and running extra busses and driving special vans to pick up kids who sleep in late, what if the expectation was that parents, no matter how poor or uneducated they are, are capable of and ought to be providing those things and performing those tasks and that, if they cannot consistently feed their children and make sure they get to school they should receive some sort of consequence for neglecting their children?]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1306656&GUID=6F6CBE4B-E687-4BD0-9264-FCA174A962B5
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