District reports small decline in total absences; mental‑health days increased and policy tightened
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Summary
District leaders reported a 2.2% decline in excused absences year‑over‑year and a rise in mental‑health coded absences; the student handbook policy will require students to report mental‑health days the same day they are taken.
The O'Fallon Township High School District 203 principal presented an end‑of‑year attendance report showing mixed results across absence categories and a policy clarification for mental‑health days.
For the 2024–25 school year the district logged approximately 29,213.5 total absence days across codes recorded in the Skyward system. Excused absences (code E) were used by 2,283 students for about 13,163.5 days; unresolved absences (no call) tallied roughly 3,997.5 days; mental‑health days (code B) increased to 3,769 days used by 1,347 students; medically excused absences (code M) totaled about 8,283.5 days.
Compared with the 2023–24 school year, excused absences declined by roughly 843 days (a 2.2% decline), unresolved absences dropped by 77 days, mental‑health absences rose by 217 days, medical absences rose by 35 days, and total absences decreased by about 667 days overall.
The principal said the district will change the handbook so that a mental‑health day must be reported on the day the student is absent rather than retroactively; staff reported misuse where mental‑health days were being used for vacations or taken retroactively, which undermined the intended purpose and complicated truancy accounting. The principal and board discussed incentives and communications strategies to encourage attendance and to explain why attendance matters for academic outcomes.