West Bend, Wisconsin High Schools Attendance and Punishment Rules

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School Rules and Punishment in the USA

Here is part of the student handbook for a high school in West Bend, Wisconsin, USA. More of the handbook is shown below. I believe it is very typical for American schools.

This was copied from the schools website on January 30, 2005. I expect the people at the school will change the way the site is worded so they won't look so bad once they see that I am criticizing it. (But they won't change the rules) As you see by the other high school in their town, they wrote their site a little differently to leave out the jail part. They just say the punishment "includes" without being as specific. But anyhow, this is what the sites said as of Jan 30, 2005 S. Hein

HABITUAL TRUANCY

Consistent and persistent willful violation of the school attendance policies will result in appropriate disciplinary action and legal referral for habitual truancy, which is defined as missing “part or all of 5 or more days per semester.” The law provides new dispositions to the court including: fines up to $500; imprisonment (not more than 30 days for a first offense); placement under formal or informal supervision for up to one year; suspension of driver’s license; an order for the student to participate in counseling, community service, supervised work program; loss of work permit for a period up to 90 days; curfew restrictions; and/or imposing sanctions holding the student's parents or legal guardians accountable for the truancy. (Source)

Comments from Ann Zeise, owner of a site on homeschooling

Note on teaching responsibility

Please take my survey at the bottom after you have read this page. Thanks, Steve.

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(a few of my comments are in italics)

Schools are required by State Statute (118.15) to observe the compulsory education law which requires all students to attend school regularly until the end of the school term, quarter, or semester of the school year in which the child becomes 18 years of age. (they can't even leave when they are 18! they have to stay till the end of the school "term, quarter or semester" even if they turn 18 on the first day of classes!)

Regular attendance is an important element for success and is the responsibility of parents/guardians and the students. ** success? being successfully brainwashed maybe

Adult students (18 years of age and older) must follow the same attendance rules as other students and may sign their own notes ONLY after a parental note is received in the office releasing the parent/guardian from his/her responsibility. ** so how can we say they are "adults" then if they still need their parents' permission?

The following reasons are considered JUSTIFIED EXCUSED ABSENCES and the students will be permitted to make up missed work:

1. Student illness

2. Serious illness or death in the immediate family

3. Medical emergency

4 Religious holidays

5. Others approved by the Administration

School field trips and co-curricular activities will occasionally cause a student to miss class. These absences will not be considered as missing school. However, all work missed must be made up.

The following reasons are considered UNEXCUSED ABSENCES:

1. TRUANCY – (including skipping an individual class), leaving the closed-campus school any time during the day (including lunch time) without prior office approval, oversleeping, shopping trips even though sanctioned by parents, concert attendance, hair appointments, runaways, car problems, baby-sitting, out of school suspensions or others not approved by the administration. Teachers are not required to allow students to make up work missed due to an unexcused absence.

2. EXCESSIVE EXCUSED ABSENCES – For the purpose of this section, excessive excused absences shall mean a student who is absent from school for part or all of 10 or more days on which school is held during a school year. A written statement from a doctor MAY be required in situations where a pattern of excessive excused absences from school has occurred. Absences not accounted for in this manner will be considered unexcused.

3. TARDINESS - Tardiness is defined as not being in the classroom at the end of the bell tone. Disciplinary consequences will begin with the classroom teacher.

HABITUAL TRUANCY

ATTENDANCE PROCEDURES (S.118.16)

1. Students are expected to attend all their classes and remain in the high school building from 7:30 a.m. until 2:31 p.m. ** 2:31? lol why the extra minute?

2. Students who are absent or tardy are to have a parent or guardian calls the high school office at (335-5550) before 8:00 a.m. to inform school officials of the student’s absence AND reason for it. ** calls? lol

3. Students who are tardy to school are to immediately report to the high school office or greeters desk upon arrival.

4. Any student whose name appears on the “unexcused absence” list is to report to the high school office before first hour on the day they return to school for a re-admit pass.

5. Students who must leave the building for medical/dental appointments during the school day must have written parental permission and present this permission to the school office and sign-out before leaving the building. Those students who become ill during the day will need parental/guardian permission before signing out in the office.

ANTICIPATED ABSENCES

Anticipated absences will require students to bring a note from their parent or guardian to the office at least two days prior to the scheduled absences. Students must inform teachers of the anticipated absence. All assignments are the responsibility of the student.
Anticipated absences are allowed for the following reasons: Family trips and vacations, college visitations, driving tests, pressing personal business, and deer hunting. Any student NOT following the above procedure will be marked unexcused for that day. ** and deer hunting?! and who decides what is "pressing" and what isn't? If it is pressing, would the student know about it two days before?

Source: west-bend.k12.wi.us/west/MoveditemsFolder/student_handbook.htm#HabitualTruancy -- link not found in Jan 2012

Source

originally from west-bend.k12.wi.us/west/MoveditemsFolder/student_handbook.htm#HabitualTruancy

then later there was a copy on the link below - but it was removed or moved also

west-bend.k12.wi.us/West/StudentHandbookFolderWEBPG/06-07%20Student%20Handbook%20RevisednewfromROB.htm

Also see January 2007 update

Comments from Ann Zeise, owner of a site on homeschooling

Here is what Ann said when I showed her this link....

LOL! That is pretty bad! Far too often families wait too long to decide
to homeschool until after truancy charges have been filed. Far better
to decide to go through the process and sign up to homeschool when it
first appears a child won't go to school!

About the 2:31 school day ending time. The state decrees a specific
number of instructional hours per year. A school decides how they will
implement it, given how many days of school they will have. This school
has figured out that they need to have 48 minute class periods most
days, and on some days they have early release days, with shorter
periods. Hopefully, the times all add up to the state mandated hours of
instruction. They have to account for the time needed to pass between
classes, too, and figure in 3 separate lunch breaks (or is it 6!).
Anyways, that is why the odd time of 2:31.

I've a brother-in-law from Wisconsin. Deer hunting is a religion there.
It would be like not allowing a Christmas break in other places not to
allow students to go deer hunting in Wisconsin!

Ann Zeise
A to Z Home's Cool
http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com

My Survey for Readers

Would you say these rules sound more like they are coming from:

A) A country which calls itself the "Land of the Free"

or

B) A country which would be better labeled as a police state?

Please write me with your thoughts.

Steve Hein

Notes

- Alfie Kohn said that the typical American high school is excellent preparation for living in a totalitarian state.

- When I was in high school I would leave my house in the morning, then go to the river or walk around someplace and skip classes. Sometimes I would go in later, sometimes I would skip the whole day. And nothing ever happened to me. Back then, the schools didn't call your house and report that you weren't in school. And I skipped at least twenty days of school when I was around 13.

But now in most high schools in the USA (and many other countries) they call your parents. The other day I talked to someone and he said he skips school and then the school calls his home. He lets the machine take the message, then erases it. (This was written before cell phones got so popular)

The Americans, and many school authorities around the world, are trying harder and harder to control all aspects of a teenager's life. I talked to a former teacher from England and she told me that now there are much more strict rules and more punishments for not going to school than when she first started teaching. She called this "an improvement."

Please write me and tell me about how things are in your schools in different countries.

Teaching responsibility?

I am a little confused.

If a teenager has to have a signed note from his parents when he doesn't want to go to school, up until he is 18 years old, how is this teaching responsibility? Wouldn't it be giving a teenager more responsibility to let them make their own choices and decisions?

It seems the people who make these rules have almost no faith or confidence in the intelligence of teenagers. They treat them as if they are incapable of making any decisions on their own for 18 years, then, magically, they are adults when they turn 18 and they are supposed to know how to make decisions for themselves. But since they have had no practice at it, I am not sure how anyone really expects this to work.

Jan 2012 note - Alfie Kohn says nearly the same thing in his speech to a group of teachers in the USA. See the MAAP video on the Alfie Kohn page

For comparison, here is what is in the student handbook for another highschool in the same city, West Bend East High School. (To save money, no doubt, the two schools are actually in the same building, but they have two different principals, football teams etc. This makes almost no sense to me, but that is how it is.)

Consistent and persistent willful violation of the school attendance policies will result in appropriate disciplinary action and legal referral for habitual truancy, which is defined as missing “part or all of 5 or more days per semester.” The law provides new dispositions to the court including: fines up to $500; suspension of driver’s license; an order for the student to participate in counseling, community service, supervised work program; loss of work permit, or to remain home except for religious worship or school programs.

1. Students are expected to attend all their classes and remain in the high school building from 7:30 a.m. until 2:31 p.m.

2. Students who are absent or tardy are to have a parent or guardian calls the high school office at (335-5550) before 8:00 a.m.to inform school officials of the student’s absence AND reason for it.

3. Students who are tardy to school are to immediately report to the high school office or greeters desk upon arrival. ** greeters desk?! and shouldn't it be greeter's desk? How many greeters sit at one desk? lol

4. Any student whose name appears on the “unexcused absence” list is to report to the high school office before first hour on the day they return to school for a re-admit pass.

Anticipated absences will require students to bring a note from their parent or guardian to the office at least two days prior to the scheduled absences. Students must inform teachers of the anticipated absence. All assignments are the responsibility of the student. Anticipated absences are allowed for the following reasons: Family trips and vacations, college visitations, driving tests, pressing personal business, and deer hunting. Any student NOT following the above procedure will be marked unexcused for that day.

This seems to be the current content of the student handbook. They have taken out the imprisonment part, but that doesn't mean the law doesn't still include it. I might try to get a copy of the actual state or local law which they refer to (without citing it.)