East Union tackles state absentee laws with handbook changes

AFTON - Calling in sick won’t be enough for schools to consider an excused absence according to a new Iowa law.

A statewide law signed in May will change how schools will be handling student absences, especially in regards to whether a student will be considered excused or unexcused.

Senate File 2435 outlines definitions and regulations school districts must create and enforce in order to follow the new law.

A student who attends over 90% of instruction days would not be considered chronically absent. If a student is in-between 90% and 80%, they would be considered chronically absent. After a student falls below 90% of attendance, a letter will be sent to the county attorney and the parents. East Union Interim Secondary Principal Jason Riley likened this as a “warning shot.”

Any attendance less than 80% of instruction days will lead to the student declared as truant, which will require the county to proceed with further action.

Additionally, if a student misses over or equal to 15% of instruction days, the school will have to create a school engagement meeting where the student, the student’s parents or guardians and a school official will outline why a student’s barriers to attendance and what could be done to improve it.

All participants of the school engagement meeting will sign an agreement called an absenteeism prevention plan. The plan will identify causes of a student’s absences and create future responsibilities to improve the student’s attendance. The school official will monitor compliance, contacting participants once a week for the remainder of the school calendar.

Enforcement of these new guidelines will be done by school officials and the county attorney. If a student doesn’t follow the absenteeism prevention plan or is truant, the county attorney could choose to press charges on the student or the parents or guardians, or refer the situation to the Department of Human Services.

East Union outlines five state-defined reasons from the bill considered as exceptions to a student being declared absent. These include those who have already met graduation requirements or have received a high school equivalent diploma, those who are excused with sufficient reason by a court of record or judge, those who attend religious services or receiving religious instructions, those who are unable to attend school due to legitimate medical reasons and those with disabilities who have an IEP or 504 plan that affects attendance.

The major concern that East Union found with these guidelines for excused absences is the “legitimate medical reasons,” which would not interpret students who had parents call them in sick as excused. Without a doctor’s note, these students wouldn’t be able to be considered excused.

In East Union, a student is declared absent after missing three or more school periods during the day. The regulations regarding period attendance do not apply to these state regulations.

Elementary Principal Joan Gordon created a table of data from last year’s listed absences to see what the school would look like under the new state policies. She noted this was the data was for all absences, excused and unexcused. She predicted no students would be declared truant and very few students would be declared chronically absent if excused absences were removed from the data.

Out of the 186 students in East Union Elementary, 163 would not be worried about the absenteeism laws. About 12% of students would fall under the chronically absent label, with 14 students as chronically absent, six as chronically absent requiring a school engagement meeting and three being labeled as truant.

East Union has a larger concern with the absenteeism laws due to how they will harshly apply to schools with a four-day school week, with students who miss school days having a higher percentage of the school year missed compared to the five-day week.

Riley estimated that if a student were to miss 7.5 days of each school semester, they would be considered chronically absent, 11 days for the requirement of a school engagement meeting and missing 15 days would declare a student truant.

Applying the absence data of last year to a four-day week, the number of chronically absent students increase. Students who would be chronically absent would represent 16% of the elementary student body with 18 students as chronically absent, five as chronically absent requiring a school engagement meeting, and six as truant.

Gordon said the largest concern will be informing parents of these new changes. “The hardest thing is going to be for parents at the elementary level is, my kid’s home throwing up, I pick up the phone, I call my child in sick,” she said. “That’s an unexcused absence. That’s not East Union, that’s what our legislature says we have to call it.”

Riley has already made plans to create three parent contact meetings before the start of the upcoming school year to invite and inform parents to answer questions related to the attendance changes. He recommends parents to schedule important appointments for their students on days where school is not in session, such as Monday, which the school will not open in the four-day school week, in order to avoid the absence regulations.

Calling a student in sick is still encouraged by the school. “You’re not a bad parent if your kid’s having a bad day you’re going to let them stay home,” said Riley. “If you’ve done that nine or 10 times, we’re just in the bind-up, this is how we have to react.”

Student handbooks have already been updated for both the elementary and secondary school, and were approved during the previous regular board meeting.