School attendance laws were updated by the Indiana State Senate on July 1st. These new laws were created to help reduce the rising rates of student absenteeism through different means.
“Students that are at school regularly, it won’t impact,” Assistant Principal John Morse said.
These new laws aim to improve student attendance, and help students, who are at risk of developing a pattern of missing school, find resources that they need.
To better help understand and address the growing concern of chronic absenteeism in schools, SHS will collect data on what is preventing students from coming to school. Rates rose, and they hit their highest during covid, but have lowered over time
“The rate in Indiana of chronic absenteeism has been really high since COVID,” Morse said. “And it’s gotten a little bit better over time, but there is still a larger than should be number of students that don’t come to school regularly.”
According to the new law, chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% of the school year for unexcused absences. With the length of Perry Township’s school year, chronic absenteeism will be defined if a student missed 20 or more days per school year, or five or more days per quarter.
At SHS, once a student gets five or more days of unexcused absences in a quarter, the school has a meeting with the student and their family to find a way to prevent the further amount of school days missed.
If a student gets 20 or more days of unexcused absences all school year, the student is turned over to the Marion County prosecutor’s office for failure to go to school.
Absences will be considered excused if they are documented illnesses, college visits and court appearances.
“Although the definition of excused absence now is pretty narrow, like an excused absence really is if you have medical documentation,” Morse said.
The creation of the law was mainly to prioritize students coming to school and receiving their education. The administration will support students by helping to eliminate barriers.
In a student’s opinion, they think it is not going to work because students don’t prioritize school.
“I just think it won’t really work,” senior Genesis Godinez said. “Because at the end of the day, (some) people here are 18 or 17. So they’re not really gonna prioritize it.”
On the other hand, Teachers believe that students should be at school to learn. They believe the more students are at school, the more successful students are.
“One thing that I do know is that the kids that are successful are the kids that are here,” math teacher Ethan Coffman said.
Ultimately, it is the students who make the biggest difference on whether this law will affect them.