Before the start of the new school year, the Adel-DeSoto-Minburn Superintendent Greg Dufoe sheds light on the new policy for student absences. 

Dufoe tells Raccoon Valley Radio that the ADM School District receives guidance from the Iowa Association of School Boards with a key emphasis on student attendance. He says Iowa state legislators took the issue seriously during the last legislative session. Dufoe outlines the legal guidelines sent down from the legislature that the state will be following in the 2024-25 school year.

“In which we have to monitor student’s attendance. There were changes to what is deemed an absence that would be exempt from calculating students from being chronically absent, and then truant.”

Dufoe notes that ADM Schools can excuse absences, like a family vacation, but wouldn’t serve as an exempt reason in the state’s perspective for attendance. He elaborates that once the absences add up to 10 percent, then students and parents/guardians will be notified.