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AREYOUAWARE?
Appleton, Wisconsin February 2016 Volume XXI
Issue I
Page 3
Are you aware that the
Appleton Area School District
changed its attendance policy?
In previous years, policy stated
that students would either be
counted as missing one half or
one full school day.
With this policy in place,
students who missed a class
period for an appointment or
slept through their alarm would
be considered missing for up
to four school periods, even if
that was not the reality.
Some students would in-
tentionally miss extra class
periods because they would be
considered absent regardless of
their actual attendance.
Since students are given 10
excused absences before they
are considered truant, appoint-
ments, family emergencies,
and illnesses can push a stu-
dent to reach that limit before
the end of the school year.
After the switch from Par-
ent Portal to Infinite Campus,
it has also been increasingly
more difficult to find exactly
how many days a student has
been absent, since the website
does not add up the total num-
ber of absences. Although stu-
dents can see how many class
periods they’ve missed, they
can’t check how many total
days they’ve missed during the
school year.
With that, and the policy
change at the beginning of the
school year, a student can end
up in truancy court without
much warning.
Letters are issued out to
families once a student has
reached seven days of absence,
but delays in the post office and
address changes might result in
a family not knowing that their
child is at risk for being truant.
Although the student hand-
book was updated with the new
policy, families were not di-
rectly notified when the district
policy changed at the begin-
ning of this school year, which
resulted in even more students
being forced into court.
Many students did not even
find out about the policy until
they were pulled out of their
second hour class and given a
detention slip.
The irony behind this is that
students are pulled out of yet
another class to be informed
that they missed a class, which
most students are clearly aware
of.
Many students were not
pleased to hear about the initial
policy change. Students with
chronic health issues were be-
ing threatened with truancy
for visiting doctors. Cheyenne
DeShaney, a senior at Apple-
ton North, says that staff were
not accommodating when she
injured her ankle during a run.
“I think [the policy] is stu-
pid. I have an injury and I was
threatened with truancy even
though I have been turning in
doctor’s slips,” said DeShaney.
Other circumstances like
that have led to students requir-
ing absences for physical ther-
apy and other types of therapy,
surgery, and appointments.
As if having to catch up
with homework and tests isn’t
Changes to school attendance policy spark criticism
By Rachel Flom
enough, students have to come
back to a staff that blames them
for missing school, even when
situations state otherwise.
Some staff at Appleton
North have been extremely ac-
commodating to students who
miss school. Matthew Ber-
lowski, one of two deans at the
school, has been willing to sit
down with students to go over
the policy and where students
stand with it.
Many teachers are also
very willing to create plans
and schedules to get students
caught up again. Some students
feel as though they receive the
most grief from secretaries,
whose job it is to inform stu-
dents of issues regarding their
attendance.
According to Berlowski,
deans from Appleton North
met with the District Office to
address issues regarding the
policy.
They decided that atten-
dance will now by counted
by the minutes a student is at
school instead of counting by
days or half-days.
Those minutes will be
added up to equate to the al-
lowed 10 school days, which
hopefully will decrease the
amount of truant students dur-
ing the 2015-2016 school year.
Families have still not been in-
formed about how this policy
change will work.
There is still the question
of how these minutes will add
up, if it counts as so many min-
utes per class period or per day.
Will lunch periods be counted?
What about privileges and re-
leases?
Students and parents still
have many questions for the
school, the most pressing one
being, “When will we be in-
formed?”
New WIAA chant rules are ruining high school sports
The WIAA has crossed
the line and it is time that
student-athletes take a stand
against it.
High school sports are fun
and beneficial to success. At
the same time, they are meant
to be competitive. They are
also supposed to prepare
student-athletes for the next
level: collegiate athletics.
In college, there are count-
less chants and anthems that
each school’s student section
creates. Some of them are
vulgar. While those are not
family-friendly or necessary
for a sporting event, they are
part of the atmosphere.
While I do not think that
those types of chants should
be permitted in a high school
setting, that is reality on a col-
lege level. In addition, those
vulgar chants are prohibited
from high schools already.
The WIAA wants to pro-
hibit chants such as: “USA,”
“you can’t do that,” “score-
board,” “air ball,” and many
others. Despite the outrage
from high schoolers and
adults, the WIAA has stayed
true to their course. In fact,
the WIAA alerted a Wiscon-
sin high school about a stu-
dent who tweeted against the
policy. She was suspended
from her basketball team for
five games. These new re-
strictions are absurd for a
multitude of reasons.
First of all, I’m still waiting
to hear a reasonable explana-
tion as to why the WIAA finds
the chants offensive. Is telling
the opposing team that their
team is losing offensive? Is
chanting “you can’t do that”
to a player who caused a pen-
alty disrespectful? Is that what
we, as a society, have come
to? If so, what isn’t offensive
anymore?
The politically-correct cul-
ture in this country has gone
over the top and this situation
is a prime example. The ban
on chants like these is why
my generation is turning into
a generation full of “victims.”
Rules like this are teaching
youth to be offended when
they shouldn’t be. Not every-
thing is offensive and rude.
The WIAA obviously cannot
look past that.
Secondly, these bans ruin
competitiveness. Chants from
a student section pump up
the players and the teams.
No matter who is chanting,
it pumps student-athletes up.
If the opposing student sec-
tion is chanting “you can’t do
that,” it gives athletes motiva-
tion to show them what they
can do. It angers us, but it also
pumps us up. If the chant is
from our own student-section,
it gives us confidence.
Having a supporting crowd
with competitive chants is
key to success as a team. It
makes the event more com-
petitive and ultimately more
enjoyable for both teams. It’s
hard enough to get students
to attend sporting events, but
with a rule like this, the draw
to sports will be significantly
less due to limited competi-
tiveness. In fact, students will
be less willing to join sports
in general. If there is no com-
petitiveness, there is no point.
Lastly, If WIAA does this,
what is next? Seriously. What
would be next? If we can’t
do these “offensive” chants
to pump up the players and
students, what can we do? Is
WIAA going to ban signs?
Are they going to ban chants
all together? The WIAA
might as well ban student
sections. As Wisconsin sports
anchor Bill Michaels said in a
Facebook post: “at this rate,
why keep score?”
This is a losing battle for the
WIAA and a huge dagger in
the heart of Wisconsin high
school sports. If they don’t
reverse this policy, they don’t
deserve to run high school
sports in Wisconsin. This is
sports, not book club. Let’s
keep it that way.
By Benji Backer
The student sections at sports games are usually full of
shouting and excitement.
Photo by Alex Neumann
The Student Services office is in charge of inputting
absences into Infinite Campus.
Photo by Sofia Voet