Parents’ Help Sought in Curbing Truancy : Oxnard: Hueneme High takes different approach by involving families rather than automatically lowering grades.

Alarmed by rampant absenteeism, officials at Hueneme High School have joined other high schools across Ventura County that are clamping down on students who skip class.

But officials at the Oxnard school are approaching the problem differently.

Instead of automatically lowering grades of students who miss a certain number of days, as other schools have done in Moorpark, Thousand Oaks and Camarillo, Hueneme High is trying to involve parents in getting their children to class.

Teachers call parents after a student has missed four days of class in a nine-week quarter. After six absences, school officials ask parents to school for a conference.

Only after attempts at parental intervention fail does the school begin meting out punishment: Students with 10 unexcused absences are either dropped from the class, sent to an alternative school or forced to continue their studies at home.

“We wanted to try having this flexibility,” Principal Joanne Black said. The idea, she said, is “working with them to get them into the mode of coming to class.”

Hueneme High’s flexibility in dealing with students who miss classes is in sharp contrast with attendance rules at Rio Mesa High School in Oxnard.

Rio Mesa High automatically lowers the grades of students with 10 unexcused absences by one letter grade. Those with 15 unexcused absences receive a reduction of two letter grades. The only absences that can be excused are for funerals of immediate family members or illnesses for which students get doctor notes.

When Rio Mesa set its attendance policy last spring, hundreds of students walked out of classes in a protest that turned violent when some students broke windows and one allegedly shoved a teacher.

But Rio Mesa High’s strict rules are working, officials say. The school’s attendance rate has improved from 94.7% in 1992-93 to 95.3% so far this school year. At the same time, however, more students are getting Fs. The percentage of failing grades at Rio Mesa rose from 8.4% among all grades to 11.9% after the attendance policy was implemented.

Rio Mesa Principal Eric Ortega said the number of A’s given at the school has also risen, possibly because students who are afraid of having their grades lowered are attending classes more regularly.

Some other high schools in the county also automatically lower the grades of students who miss too many classes.

At Moorpark High School, grades are lowered after a student has five unexcused absences in a semester. And at Thousand Oaks High, students who are absent without parental permission from a class more than five times in a semester are automatically dropped from the course with a failing grade.

Hueneme High is asking Oxnard Union High School District officials for the option of lowering grades of students who have 10 absences. But the school would reserve that alternative for students who are concerned about their grades, Black said.

Up to half of Hueneme High’s 2,200 students miss at least 10 days of school during each quarter, which amounts to two weeks of absences for every nine weeks of class, Black said.

Hueneme officials see a problem with automatically lowering the grades of truants, Black said: It doesn’t work with students who don’t care whether they make an A, B, C or D.

But the threat of getting dropped from a course for poor attendance motivates most students because they want to graduate, officials said.

“There are some students, you could lower their grades all the way down to a D and they don’t care as long as they’re passing,” English teacher John Erickson said. But all students “are very conscious of how many credits they have and how many they have left to graduate.”

The emphasis at Hueneme High, officials said, is not on punishing students who miss school, but enlisting parents’ help in getting them to class.

“We want to intervene early enough to have a positive outcome,” science teacher Mike Vollmert said. Vollmert, Erickson and two other instructors were assigned last week to stay after school and meet with parents whose children have already had six absences in the second semester.

Parent Martin Miranda was one of those who met with the teachers’ committee.

With his 14-year-old daughter, Mary, at his side, Miranda explained to the teachers that he had not realized his daughter was frequently skipping her first-period class. Miranda and his wife are at work in the morning when Mary leaves for school, he said.

Now that he is aware of the problem, Miranda said, he will find a way to make sure Mary gets to school before first period starts at 7:25 a.m.

“She’s going to start getting up a lot earlier,” he said.

Although Mary was the subject of discussion, she said little during the meeting and sat with an expressionless look. But as she and her father left the meeting, Mary said she was pleased by all the fuss the school was making about her poor attendance.

“I think it’s pretty cool,” she said, “because I guess they care.”