By Robert King
Indianapolis Public Schools
is about to take a swipe at a problem plaguing the district for years: missing students.
When classes begin this week, so, too, will new rules on absences and tardiness. Those rules could lead to:
» Parents being reported to Child Protective Services if their children rack up too many absences or tardies.
» Teachers being fired if they fail to keep tabs and report on missing students.
» Students facing the prospect of failing grades if they don’t show up for school — and on time.
“The number one complaint of teachers is that the kids are pretty bright, but they miss too much school and their learning has these gaps,” said IPS Superintendent Eugene White, who crafted the policy with input from School Board members, principals and his Cabinet.
“This is just another step in our effort to create a new culture in the district, new expectations and the whole deal. That’s what this is about.”
School leaders say efforts to fix what’s broken in IPS stand no chance unless something is done to address the problem of missing and late students, a problem that is particularly acute in high schools.
At several schools, the attendance rate has fallen below 90 percent. That’s crucial given that most new federal and state standards require schools to have attendance rates of at least 95 percent. Some schools have seen more than a third of their students rack up more than 10 unexcused absences.
Until now, IPS schools mostly have been left to their own preferences on how to deal with missing students.
“This is a much needed thing,” said Howe Community High School Principal Stephanie Nixon. With students frequently moving to different schools in the city, consistent rules will make it easier for parents and students to know what’s expected, she said.
“If we are all being held accountable and paying attention to attendance,” Nixon said, “we have to do a better job of watching and monitoring and observing and reporting.”
The new rules would require each school to track attendance on an hourly, daily and weekly basis.
Teachers must report their attendance electronically at the start of each class. Administrators will be assigned a roster of students, and if a child is absent, they must call parents to check on the student. Weekly reports on attendance will be made available online for parents to see.
With a child’s seventh unexcused absence or sixth tardy, school social workers will file a report notifying CPS that the student’s parents are engaging in educational neglect. What happens then isn’t exactly clear.
Chernika Coe, a parent with two children who attend School 56, said that in general, she has no problem with trying to address the attendance issue. But, she said, “don’t go overboard.”
And she thinks reporting parents to CPS is doing just that — especially because she has little confidence in IPS keeping accurate records on attendance.
She said her two children have received an unexcused absence when their absence was excused.
CPS spokeswoman Ann Houseworth said other school districts already fax or e-mail attendance reports when children miss too much school. Those reports are reviewed, but what’s done depends on the context. If missing school is part of a larger set of problems in a home, the reports could be important. If the absences are due to a family vacation, that would be weighed differently.
Nixon, the principal at Howe, is among those who aren’t convinced that CPS, given its already full load of abuse and neglect cases, will be able to give truancy reports much attention, or do so in a timely manner. But the larger point, she said, is that the new rules show IPS means business when it comes to attendance.
White said he, too, isn’t sure how CPS will respond. But he said that at least his district would not be open to the accusation that it was negligent in this area.
“If we report it,” he said, “then that puts the ball in their court.”
Administrators said punishment for teachers who fail to promptly report late or absent students — including reprimands, suspension and dismissal — is not only important to getting students in class, but is vital in ensuring schools know where every child is at any given moment.
IPS teachers union President Ann Wilkins declined to comment on the new rules, saying she hadn’t seen them.
But teachers and parents aren’t the only ones who would be held accountable under the new rules. Students who rack up 12 absences — of any kind — within a nine-week quarter would automatically receive an F. The same goes with 25 absences within one semester.
The problem of students who are absent or late to class was made starkly clear to White in a series of reports written last year by Indianapolis Star columnist Matthew Tully about how Manual High School officials greeted late students at the door with passes admitting them to class.
“They were giving out late passes like lollipops,” White said. “And you can’t do that.”
Some schools have already been attacking the problem.
At Northwest High School, where the attendance rate has been about 97 percent in recent years, Principal Larry Yarrell has set up a weekly in-school court to handle tardiness cases. He’s also instituted hall sweeps to get kids to class. Beyond that, Yarrell said, the school has tried to make students feel safe and cared for.
But with schools facing severe consequences for failing students — such as a takeover by the state, for some — Yarrell said it is time that parents be held accountable, too.
“In order for us to educate students, they have to be here,” Yarrell said. “The parents have to help us.”
