The Safety and Licensing Committee met 08/13/2025. They spent slightly over an hour receiving an update from Appleton Area School District staff and asking questions regarding the push to implement a new municipal truancy ordinance. AASD Superintendent Greg Hartjes presented some information on the number of students who have been chronically absent and then provided information on dispositions AASD would like to see in a municipal truancy ordinance.
The meeting finished with Alderperson Chris Croatt (District 14) indicating that he hoped to bring the item to the committee for possible action in September. The earliest that would happen would be September 10th, but he did not have a definitive date set at that point and encouraged the public to keep an eye on the city’s online meeting calendar.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
The meeting started out with the parent of an AASD high school student talking about how she hoped the ability for the city to issue a truancy citation might positively impact her son’s school attendance. She was a single parent who is working and attending school full time, and her son began skipping classes and then full days of school in his freshman year. The school did what it could to support him, but their resources were limited and he was eventually referred to Outagamie County so that he could receive more serious intervention. While her son did seem to take the County’s intervention more seriously, his mother was concerned that the lack of real consequences could result in him disengaging completely from school during his sophomore year. She felt a truancy citation and court involvement would have more of an impact on him. “I feel that this kind of intervention would make him realize the gravity of his actions and the real-world consequences, which might finally motivate him to change his behavior.”
Stephanie Marta, one of the AASD attendance coordinators, read a letter from a former student who graduated in 2014 and who had experienced the old truancy court. Truancy court had been a positive experience for this student. “It helped me to understand how school needs to be taken seriously, to attend my classes, and to do the work that that was expected of me.” They asked the Common Council to consider bringing back the ability to issue truancy citations.
Justin Heitl, the principal of Appleton Central Alternative High School also addressed the committee. He said that the students he worked with “face barriers that are really out of their control. 90% of our students struggle with mental health— depression, anxiety, ADHD. I will call that the trifecta that these beats a lot of our young kids up. We have, obviously, larger mental health concerns that we’re dealing with as well. 75 plus percent of our students come from poverty. 25 plus percent of our students are dealing with trauma in the household, something horrible, but, you know, we don’t want to talk about that they’re dealing with as a youth. 10% of our students have dealt with major medical issues and haven’t been able to come to school. We bring them in; we figure out a plan. But the biggest thing is, many students have uninvolved adult support systems. I would say 40 to 50% meaning they’re living with grandma and grandpa. They’re living with somebody else, but they don’t have a truly involved person. That’s where we come in.”
A problem that he ran into was that some students just didn’t show up enough to school in order to get a GED or follow a different pathway to graduate. “[F]or a kiddo that doesn’t come to school at any at all, I can’t do anything but have that difficult conversation.” He told a story about a student who was going to be 18 in a couple months and only had 4 credits total when he needed 23 to graduate, and there was no short cut to fix that so he could graduate. The student was stunned and said, “You’re kidding me. I thought I would have been passed through because I have been.” Principal Heitl believed a truancy ordinance and the ability to issue a citation would be beneficial. “[T]hat poor young man that came into my office a couple days ago with four credits, I can’t fix that, and he was allowed to not come to school because we couldn’t force him for so long.”
Superintendent Hartjes reviewed the rates on chronic absenteeism and habitual truancy over the last several years. Habitual truancy is defined as a student missing all or part of 5 or more school days in a semester without an excuse. Chronic absenteeism, however, includes both excused and unexcused absences and is defined as missing 10% of eligible school days which equals 18 days for the full school year.
State law focuses on habitual truancy, but AASD is instead concerned about chronic absenteeism. Superintendent Hartjes told the committee, “We don’t like the truancy law because it says that a student could be habitually truant if they miss part of five days in the semester. We know that a student could be unexcused for the first period three days in a row, and come to school every day, all day, for three months, and then miss first hour again two more days, they’re considered habitually truant. We see that as a student who can still be successful. The kids we’re worried about are the ones who are not going to school enough to be successful. So, it’s the chronic absenteeism we’re concerned about.”
A parent has a right to call their child in as absent for up to 10 days a year with no questions asked. If a student continues to miss school beyond those 10 days, AASD will reach out to the parents and ask them to share why their child is missing school. Sometimes the parents will not provide any information.
They discussed how they respond to students with ongoing or chronic medical concerns. For an issue such as chronic headaches, the school will request a letter be provided every 30 days from a doctor confirming that the student may be absent over the course of the next month. For more serious ongoing illness such as cancer, the school would not expect a letter every 30 days because there would be plans in place both for their treatment and to address their needs when they are in school.
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) asked how chronic absenteeism resulting from a student avoiding school due to bullying was handled. He was told that when a student reports bullying, the school fills out a bullying investigation form and school staff will develop a plan for the student. Actions depend on the type and severity of the bullying. They might adjust schedules, change how the student is getting around the building, or even consider switching schools.
Superintendent Hartjes reviewed the recommendations for dispositions to be included in a municipal truancy ordinance. Wisconsin State Statutes allow 12 different dispositions or punishments to be carried out against truant students. AASD was only recommending that 7 of those 12 dispositions be included in an Appleton-specific ordinance and recommended against including 5 of those allowable dispositions.
DISPOSITIONS THAT ARE RECOMMENDED
- An order to attend school
- An order for the student to participate in counseling or a supervised work program or other community service work.
- An order for the student to attend an educational program
- A fine of $250 plus costs
- An order placing the student under formal or informal supervision for up to one year
- Revocation of a students work permit
- Suspension of the student’s driver’s license for not less than 30 days and not more than 1 year
DISPOSITIONS THAT ARE NOT RECOMMENDED
- An order for the student to be placed in a teen court program
- A order for the student’s parent/guardian to participate in counseling at the parent’s/guardian’s expense
- An order for the student to remain at home except during the hours when they are attending religious worship or a school program
- Any reasonable conditions such as curfew, restrictions going to or remaining on specific premises, and restrictions on associating with other children or adults
- An order for the student to report to a youth report center after school, in the evening, on weekends, on other non-school days, or at any other time
Regarding the $250 fine, Superintendent Hartjes noted that under state law, the fine could be as high as $500. AASD felt that $250 was high enough that it would get a student’s attention and hopefully prompt them to start attending school, whereas if it were a lower number like $50 the student might just pay the fine and continue to miss school.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) noted that the state statute regarding truancy made parents responsible for children under 18 attending school, but the dispositions recommended by AASD removed parents from the picture. She wondered what the reasoning was behind not having any sort of dispositions aimed at parents.
Superintendent Hartjes responded that (1) they felt it was unfair to fine a parent who was unable to get their 16- or 17-year-old to go to school, (2) teenagers should be held accountable for going to school just as they should be held accountable in other areas such as driving safely, and (3) the district attorney’s office had said they would not prosecute tickets given to parents.
Alderperson Fenton also raised the concern that for some families a $250 fine would mean not being able to pay rent that month. Superintendent Hartjes said a judge could give students an opportunity to not pay the fine by using other dispositions such as requiring them to attend school every day for the next two weeks. There was some discussion about possibly making the fine “up to $250” instead of just making it a straight $250 so that judges would have more discretion in how much to fine a student. Assistant City Attorney Zak Buruin also noted that judges inherently had sentencing discretion.
Superintendent Hartjes also talked about how they planned to make sure that, if a truancy ordinance was implemented, it would continue to be used as a measure of last resort for the roughly 30 students a year who had the most problematic attendance issues rather than becoming a measure that was used against 40 students, then 50 students, then 100 students. The school district came up with this plan in conjunction with the city, the county, and Judge Carrie Schneider.
He presented the committee with a draft of a procedural checklist that would document the different attempts to contact an absent student and their family as well as the interventions that have been offered and attempted and the results of those interventions. The form also documented the number of credits a student has, how many they could have earned, current grades, and the number of days they were truant as well as their percentage of chronic absenteeism.
All of this information would be turned over to a School Resource Officer who would be able to determine whether or not to issue a citation.
Alderperson Fenton noted that part of the SRO’s job was to form relationships with students and asked if there was concern that giving the SROs the ability to issue citations would negatively impact the way students related to them. Superintendent Hartjes reiterated that citations were intendent to be a measure of last resort after they had tried everything else. “We think that certainly our SROs have capacity, and our SROs when they’re selected to be a school resource officer, there’s a certain level of nurturing that they have in them, right? It’s often quite different than somebody who maybe is in a different role in the police department, and so they are—they’re just somebody that has a bit of a different skill set than anybody else in our building, but certainly they’re trying to do the same thing just help kids be successful.”
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) asked if they could provide information on how each of AASD’s attendance interventions worked and how the roughly 800 students who started out as chronically absent were able to flow through the interventions and end up being whittled down to only 30 problem students who needed citations. AASD had not figured out a good way to present that information, because it was such an individual process for each student. However, Stephanie Marta, one of AASD’s attendance coordinators, said they would be able to provide information on some of their most commonly used interventions.
Alderperson Vaya Jones (District 10) wondered if all of the attendance programs were available in all of the schools because she had heard that they were not. She felt like they were rushing to reestablish a truancy ordinance and asked if there was a reason they were not focusing on building the attendance programs.
Superintendent Hartjes stated that the idea that all of the programs were not available in all of the schools or available to all students was misinformation. “We do have PATH program at all three of our high schools. We do have STAR program at all three high schools. We do have our TRAC program at all three high schools. So, I’ve seen the information out there. It’s wrong.”
They discussed the PATH program a little bit because Alderperson Jones indicated that that program filled up quickly and United Way was reducing their funding for it. PATH is a school-based program designed to improve access to mental health services for youth who are unable to obtain care elsewhere in the community. Superintendent Hartjes explained to the committee that AASD was just a pass-through for this independent program. “[T]he role of PATH is not to provide mental health support for a student so they can be successful at school. The role of PATH is because the community recognize that kids don’t have access to mental health support out in the community. Perhaps their parents can’t get them there. They don’t have transportation. So, PATH was bringing mental health into the school, but it’s really just we’re kind of a pass through for the PATH program, meaning we find the space, we might recommend the students, but ultimately, then they’re taken over by Catalpa […] but it’s all a program of the United Way.” [So, it sounds like PATH is not an attendance program or even as AASD-run program although it is provided within AASD to AASD students.]
Ms. Marta told the committee that AASD does not have a waiting list for attendance interventions. “It is dependent on is the student going to accept and participate in the intervention. We obviously can’t force it, but we do try our best to tailor interventions to individual student needs.”
The meeting finished up with Alderperson Croatt providing a tentative timeline of next steps. He was looking at bringing back to the committee the resolution to reinstitute a truancy ordinance in Appleton sometime in September. He thought it would likely come 09/10/2025, but he could not guarantee that the committee would take action on it that day. If they did take action that day, then it would come before the Common Council on 09/17/2025. He encouraged the public to keep an eye on the meeting schedules and agendas for more details.
[I understand at the high school level why chronic absenteeism interventions would be directed toward the student and not the parents, but I do not understand why parents are being cut out of the process at the elementary and middle school level. AASD’s own charts indicate that there’s a 3%-6.3% habitual truancy rate and 13.6% chronic absenteeism rate at the elementary level as well as a 8.6%-14.7% truancy rate and 18.7% chronic absenteeism rate at the middle school level. Given the ages of those children, that inherently is the fault of their parents. It seems like a citation for some of those parents in some of those situation might be in order and could have the same salutary effects as the citations for students at the high school level. And, dealing with parents at the elementary and middle school level might result in future high school students being truant and absent at the high school level.
I understand that the current district attorney has indicated he will not prosecute citations against parents, but that doesn’t mean that something might not change in the future. It might be beneficial to put that option in the ordinance so that it could be pursued in the future should things change.
I’m baffled by the lack of interest dealing with parents/guardians. Principal Heitl comes out and plainly states 25% of his students are dealing with household trauma and 40-50% don’t have an involved adult in their life. That comes across as a driving force behind the chronic absenteeism rates. So why isn’t that root cause being highlighted or steps being taken to try to get these uninvolved adults to step up and start carrying out their responsibilities?]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1281719&GUID=7E3F8DC1-95ED-47B4-BA73-0B8AE2D4DD54
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