High Schools Turning Tough on Students Who Cut Classes

Punishment for cutting classes at Agoura High School--and at hundreds of other American secondary schools--has become a lot harsher, as principals have toughened their stance against truancy.

Under a program started this fall, any Agoura student with 15 absences in any class, even if that student has parental permission to be absent, receives a failing grade, is dropped from the class and can be transferred to another high school in the Las Virgenes Unified School District.

This is the first time Agoura High has had a formal attendance policy, according to principal Michael Botsford. In the past, there was no prescribed punishment for excessive absences.

But the new program, Botsford said, is not a signal that the school is in trouble. On a typical day, 92% of Agoura’s 1,834 students attend classes, and most of those absent bring notes from their parents explaining why they missed school. The school’s dropout rate is extremely low, and its academic record is one of the best in the state.

Formal Policy

But Agoura High teachers, frustrated by students who took vacations during the academic year with parental permission, came up with the idea of a formal attendance policy.

Students may have “been skiing in Aspen, but they would come back to school with notes from their parents saying they were sick,” said Agoura principal Botsford.

“It’s frustrating when you have to ask a teacher who has 175 students in five different classes to review class work, give makeup tests, and assign extra homework to students who have been on a family ski trip,” Botsford continued. “Teachers don’t mind extra work if a student has missed class for a valid reason.”

Truancy, with or without parental cooperation, is pervasive in high schools because teen-agers, more than any other school-age group, have the mobility to skip classes.

For example, on an average day in the Los Angeles Unified School District, 93% of the district’s elementary school students, 89% of its junior high students and 83% of its high school students are in class, according to district reports.

In the Simi Valley Unified School District, 10% to 16% of the high school students skip at least one class period each day, according to Allan Jacobs, associate superintendent.

Last year, 12,731 students were picked up by Los Angeles police officers as part of Operation Stay-in-School, a cooperative truancy program by the Police Department and the Los Angeles school district. Almost two-thirds of the truants were high school students.

In the San Fernando Valley, 3,781 truant students were stopped by officers.

When police in the cooperative program catch students cutting classes, they drive them to the local police station, where the students talk to counselors from the school district. A counselor calls the students’ school, and the students’ parents or guardians must go to the police station to pick them up.

Few Repeaters

“We don’t get a lot of repeaters in this program because these are some pretty heavy-duty negative consequences for the kids,” said Ed Davis, director of the program. “Parents aren’t too happy when they have to leave work to go to a police station to pick up a kid who cut class.”

Agoura’s strict policy is just one of many new methods educators have recently introduced to show students they are serious about reducing truancy.

In Minnesota, the state legislature is now considering denying driver’s licenses to teen-agers with poor school attendance.

High schools in Texas ban truants from participating in extracurricular activities. High schools around Sacramento assign truants to Saturday campus-cleanup crews.

Each day at James Monroe High School in Sepulveda, the number of students absent is placed on a large marquee facing a busy street. On some days this year, more than 500 students out of an enrollment of 2,600 have been absent. Administrators said they hope that publicizing the numbers will make parents more aware of their child’s attendance record.

At Azusa High School, truants and their parents must attend early-evening detention sessions where both youngsters and adults must sit quietly in a classroom until they can meet with counselors and administrators.

A report issued by nine Baltimore high school principals recommended that a family’s welfare benefits be linked to children’s school attendance records. So far, no state or federal agency has taken any action on the proposal, but the Baltimore group is lobbying for the idea to be tested.

The new truancy policies can be controversial. Earlier this month, a Simi Valley district proposal to fail students who have 15 or more absences ignited enough parental protest that district officials decided to withdraw the proposal and redesign the policy.

“The parents weren’t concerned about punishment for students with unexcused absences,” said Jacobs. “They felt our questioning of notes on illness was questioning their integrity. We didn’t want to void a parent’s note.”

But, he said, “Missing 15 days out of a 90-day semester is a lot. That’s the message we were trying to get across.”

Tradition of Lenience

Principals readily acknowledge that, in the past, punishment for playing hooky was either too lenient or inadequately enforced. After-school detention or lectures by administrators were the most common penalties. Chronic truants were often suspended. But educators now say banning a youngster from campus is futile for a student who did not want to be in school in the first place.

Attitudes about truancy began to change about five years ago when data showed a direct link between chronic truancy and dropouts.

In a two-year survey of 1,000 public and private high schools by the National Center for Education Statistics and the Educational Testing Service, researchers found that 54% of the sophomores who said they frequently cut class in 1980 had dropped out of school by 1982. Only 25% of the students who remained in school said they frequently cut classes in 1980.

Money is another reason for the new crackdown. California is one of 35 states in which schools receive state funds based on the number of students in class. In most California school districts, attendance surveys are taken daily. State allocations are based on weekly averages. To make sure a school receives all the money to which it is entitled, administrators have to reduce the number of unexcused absences.

The stereotypes of who cuts class and who does not have been shattered. For years, educators said they believed that students most likely to cut class were the “troublemakers” or the “failures.”

But students told researchers that they cut classes they considered “boring” or “too easy,” said John de Jung, a professor at the Center for Educational Policy and Management at the University of Oregon. De Jung was co-author of a 1985 study that showed that a typical urban high school student cuts 100 classes every year and that less than 1% of the 12,000 students surveyed said they had never skipped a class.

Although many high-achieving students cut classes, there was still evidence that links truancy to low grades. Nearly half of all “high-absence” students had grade point averages of 1.5 out of a possible 4.0--equal to a D-plus--de Jung added.

And, according to the Los Angeles district, boys are twice as likely to cut class as girls.

“Ethnicity is not a factor in who cuts school and who doesn’t cut school,” said Bob Crain, director of the Los Angeles district’s attendance and adjustment services division. Although the school district does not keep truancy statistics by ethnic group, it is clear that “truancy cuts across all racial and economic lines,” Crain added.

School districts are trying many new techniques to reduce the cutting of classes. For example, last year the Grant Joint Union High School District in Sacramento sponsored a series of television commercials that ran during cartoon programs on weekday mornings. The ads urged students to go to school.

“When I would visit homes of chronic truants, almost 95% of the time I found them watching television, especially cartoons,” said Tad Kitada, the district’s child welfare and attendance coordinator.

The 10- and 30-second spots, featuring voices of disc jockeys from a popular rock music radio station, admonished students to get dressed, get their homework, get out the door and not miss the bus.

ID Cards Issued

To help the Torrance Police Department identify truants, two years ago, the Torrance Unified School District started issuing student identification cards that list the student’s class schedule on the back. Since the program began, school officials report a 40% reduction in absenteeism.

Under the new attendance policy at Agoura High School, after the eighth absence a letter is sent to the student’s home informing parents that their child has reached the half-way point in absences and is in danger of failing the course.

On the 12th absence, school administrators send another letter to the student’s parents warning them of the impending “drop-fail.” After the 15th absence, the student flunks out. The Agoura attendance policy also deals with tardy students. After the fourth time a student is late to class, teachers send a post card informing parents. After the fifth time, students are assigned to a Saturday campus cleanup crew.

After the seventh time a student is late, a letter is sent to parents informing them that their child will fail the class if late 10 times. The student is also assigned to a second round of cleaning up the campus.

Since the introduction of the attendance policy, Saturday cleanup crews have averaged 50 students each week, Botsford said.

Agoura administrators said they have been surprised at the volume of work the attendance policy has created. In the first three months of the program, school officials have sent about 100 letters a day to parents warning them about their children’s attendance problems.

Parents have the right to appeal a drop-fail to the Las Virgenes Board of Education, but the board has yet to receive an appeal, according to Supt. Albert Marley.

12 Have Been Failed

So far, 12 students have been failed for poor attendance. By the end of the fall semester, Agoura administrators said, more students with poor attendance will probably fail.

Agoura’s attendance plan took two years to design. During that period the school’s faculty, administration and student council reviewed the program. The Las Virgenes Board of Education held a public hearing on it and formally approved it.

Still, implementation has been controversial, especially among Agoura High students.

In an opinion piece run in the October issue of the school newspaper, “The Charger,” student reporter Lawrence Balingit wrote: “I felt at first constrained by the new policy. I feared I could be systematically dropped from a class due to excess absences (even excused absences)! . . . Now, after considering the purpose, safeguards and leniency of the new policy, I’ve found it fair to the students.”

Other Agoura students disagree. They say the policy is unfair because it does not allow for excused absences. Some maintain that students with colds and other ailments are coming to school because they do not want to build a backlog of absences. And some students are demanding equity--they want the attendance policy extended to teachers and administrators.

“I think the policy is a little harsh because sometimes there’s just no way you can make it to class on time,” said Preston Brewer, a senior who was late twice this semester.

Added senior Kristen Vopica: “It’s not stopping the people who cut classes, and it’s hurting a lot of people. I don’t think it’s a very good idea.”

Administrators, however, are pleased with the early results of the attendance policy.

“I don’t like seeing kids being casual about their education,” said Principal Botsford. “Now, instead of seeing students walking leisurely to their classes, they’re really hustling to make it on time. I like seeing kids hustle.”