District 219 released a new attendance policy at the end of first semester. In a staff meeting, teachers were informed that they are expected to “connect with students after two absences [whether excused or not] in a two week period” and “connect with parents/guardians after five [unexcused] absences” within a three week period. With the latter, teachers are expected to call or email guardians until they receive a response. Teachers are to document the reason for the absence, information shared by the guardian, offer support to students that were absent and be aware of other attendance guidelines.

This policy comes after the Illinois State Board of Education released its yearly report card for Niles West. The report outlined that Niles West, as of 2025, has a 28% chronic absenteeism rate. The state average is 25.4%.

“I’m hoping that it’s going to help to be a partnership more between parents, students and ourselves to be able to get students to stay in school, be in school,” science teacher Jennifer Sipiera said.

In response to this policy, the Niles Township Federation of Teachers and Support Staff filed a grievance, a formal complaint, with the district. The complaint is still in the grievance process. Matthew Fahrenbacher commented on the union’s actions.

“This change sort of came out of the blue and we weren’t really informed of it. I think there are some ways that it probably could have been tweaked or remodeled so everyone would get on board and pick it sort of a team effort,” Fahrenbacher said. “Some of the expectations almost sounded like things that were what the attendance office does in terms of validating why students are absent.”

Some, like English teacher Jody Weatherington, believe that this puts an unnecessary burden on teachers.

“I have to dig to find out how many absences [a student] has,” Weatherington said. “It’s time consuming.  If I’m trying to plan, grade and deal with things happening in my classroom specifically and all the various parts of teaching, adding this is just another responsibility on our teaching day.”

Principal Steve Parnther acknowledges that there is still more work to be done in order to ensure that students show up to school.

“I think we can also acknowledge that we all have a common goal- to ensure that we’re providing our best to our students,” Parnther said. “I think the question that remains is ‘how do we incentivize our students to come?’ I don’t think that necessarily falls on our teachers. I think that falls on me…on everybody here… our parents.”