The California Department of Education (CDE) reports that a truant is someone who cuts class three times or more without an excuse. According to the CDE, Gunn’s truancy rate, its number of truant students, has risen 23 percent in the past two years, from 38 percent in 2007 to 54 percent in 2008. However, the increase in truancy rate is still lower than that of Palo Alto High School’s (Paly).

The administration said that they do not see truancy as a serious issue at Gunn. “Truancy is not that big of a problem at Gunn,” Assistant Principal Phil Winston said. “We have some repeat offenders, but we have some really good policies and staff in place to help us deal with this.”

Gunn’s fluctuating truancy pattern over the past few years, as shown by the 2009 WASC report, is reflective of the constantly changing student body size. For example, Gunn’s highest truancy rate thus far, in 2007 to 2008, occurred concurrently with its largest enrollment of 1,874 students. Administration, however, still placed high importance on solving the problem of truancy. “Before school opened in the fall we decided to make truancy a top priority and put it on the front burner,” Principal Noreen Likins said.

The exact reason for the increase in truancy in Palo Alto high schools is ambiguous, but there are many factors that appear to contribute to this issue. One prevalent theory is that many students at Gunn are increasingly cutting class to study. “Usually when I cut I have a good enough reason like I have a test next period, or some unfinished business like homework,” junior Wook Lee said. “I usually go to the Academic Center (AC). I think the AC is a mecca for students who cut.” Lee also said that the fact that Palo Alto is a high pressure academic environment and students are pushed to get into good colleges may also contribute to students cutting.

English teacher Nicole Cohen agrees that academic pressure plays a role in truancy. “This is not the only source of truancy,” Cohen said. “However, some students are cutting classes because they are very stressed. They cut what they may consider insignificant classes to get work done for other courses. Nevertheless, in the long term, I don’t think students realize that it’s going to hurt them. Cutting under any circumstance is not a good idea.”

Students like Lee agree that they cut some classes more than others. “Gym is pretty useless to me because I’m fit, and I guess I don’t need to go to gym because it’s a waste of my time and I’d rather just study and increase my intellectual capabilities,” Lee said.

Though some students claim to be cutting class for “good” reasons, they are still violating Gunn’s attendance policy, which states that after four cuts, students must attend Saturday School, and after five cuts, they are dropped from the class. According to Likins, the task of attendance is a difficult one. Some teachers implement their own consequences for students who cut to help carry out the school’s policy. “If they cut it will affect their grades,” Cohen said. “Every cut may lower their grade by half a letter grade in my class.”

Yet even with these policies in place, the truancy rate is still going up. “[Truancy is] based on taking attendance once a day, which is an elementary model of attendance monitoring,” Winston said. In high school, students can become truants very quickly, because attendance is taken seven periods a day.

“Tracking attendance is extremely hard,” Likins said. “Sometimes if a student cuts, it’s very hard to get a hold of him or her. There has to be due process—you have to treat the penalty as three cuts for the first time you catch the student.” The administration however, is working to improve attendance policy. “We have tried really hard to make a dent in truancy by implementing things like Saturday School, and I think this has been effective,” Likins said. She said they are mainly focusing on tardiness this year, rather than cutting, since that appears to be the most problematic for students.

The Tardy Focus Group was also created this year to address the problem of tardiness and truancy. Parents, teachers, students and counselors have met twice thus far to discuss the effectiveness of new policies such as Saturday School on a weekly basis. The group has been discussing ideas about why students cut and possible strategies to reduce the problem.

“The purpose of the group is to see if the tardy policy that was implemented is working, and if not, how do we discourage tardies,” junior group member Sarah Simonetti said. Among the ideas that the group has discussed, Simonetti says they have been thinking about adding an extra two minutes to the passing period between A and B and between C and D periods. “The cut-off date for tardies should be implemented,” Simonetti said. “Another big part of it is publicizing it. A lot of teachers don’t tell you when you’re tardy.” The members have also discussed that “second-semester” seniors are generally more likely to be late to class than freshman.

However, Likins said that cutting and being late to class boils down to negative impacts on oneself and his or her own peers. “I think the bottom line is not only does truancy or tardiness disrupt the classroom environment, but people develop habits which can be very detrimental to their success in a work environment,” Likins said.