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Steamboat Springs — The state of Colorado and its public school administrators and teachers set high academic standards annually, but students and parents take full responsibility when it comes to one issue - going to school.

"It's hard to achieve academically if you have a group of students not attending school on a regular basis," Soroco Secondary Principal James Chamberlin said.

The Hayden School District was noticing a trend of truancy, and administrators and staff deemed it enough of a problem that they penned an attendance policy.

The policy was adopted before school started this year, and it has "significantly" addressed the issue of high school students missing classes and parents repeatedly excusing those students from attending school, Hayden Secondary Principal Troy Zabel said.

As of mid-December in 2005, Hayden students had already missed an average of 4.9 days in three months.

At the same point in 2006, months after the Hayden School Board passed the policy, high school students had missed an average of 1.8 days.

"That's significant," Zabel said.

Hayden's attendance policy allows a student to miss class 10 times before the student risks failing the class. After five excused or unexcused absences a letter goes home to parents notifying them of the situation.

After seven absences, an administrator meets with the parents and student, and the student is subject to an attendance contract. Zabel said there are a few students currently on attendance contracts.

Five unexcused tardies equals one absence.

"Both parents and students are being held accountable," Zabel said. "We would have had a number of kids gone without this policy in place."

Chamberlin and Steamboat Springs Assistant Principal Kevin Taulman said they are paying attention to the steps Hayden has taken to address truancy because attendance, while not a problem at either school, could be better, Chamberlin and Taulman said.

Soroco's Faculty Council is reviewing the district's current policy, which says 10 days of unexcused absences can be missed before administrators step in. Parents or guardians also are kept informed of truancy.

But Chamberlin said truancy, or unexcused absences, isn't the most pressing issue in South Routt.

"Our problem is that we have very few kids with unexcused absences," Chamberlin said. "They get them excused for a variety of reasons. We are evaluating what we can legally and educationally do to try and cut back on the number of excused absences."

Family vacations that don't coincide with the school calendar or families needing their children's help with business or work also cut into a student's attendance.

"We are looking at policies that when they return, they will make that time up with a tutor to make sure they are getting academic support," Chamberlin said. "The biggest thing with attendance is the time and effort teachers spend trying to get them caught up with their classmates."

At Soroco High School, which has 105 students, there are only seven to 10 students with attendance issues, Chamberlin said.

Steamboat doesn't have an issue with attendance, Taulman said, but "it's always something you want to improve."

Counting unexcused and excused absences, Steamboat Springs High School has a daily attendance rate of 92.3 percent. The number likely would be higher if excused absences weren't calculated into the daily attendance rate because of the number of students who miss school to attend Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club races.

But the Winter Sports Club has strict academic guidelines that students must adhere to for eligibility, and Taulman said those Winter Sports Club students must make up their work to compete, so those excused absences aren't as much of a problem.

"The students who are truant, those are the ones you want here," Taulman said. "Any truancy, which is an unexcused absence, they cannot make the work up. That affects your grade dramatically. Some students care, some don't."

Steamboat parents can excuse a student for any reason up to five times. After that, the school may require a doctor's note or may set up a conference with the parent. For every period a student misses, the high school levies one 90-minute detention.

But Steamboat does not have a policy in place holding parents accountable for excessively excusing their children from school.

"We try the best we can," Taulman said. "There is no formal process in there to hold them accountable."