SARB Referral Form

Attendance Definitions

• Truant - a student missing more than 30 minutes of instruction without an excuse three times during the school year.
• Habitual Truants - a student who is absent without a legitimate excuse for three or more consecutive school days, seven or more school days in one month or twelve or more school days in a school year.
• Chronic Truants - EC Section 48263.6: Any pupil who is absent from school without a valid excuse for ten percent or more of the school days in one school year, from the date of enrollment to the current date, is deemed a chronic truant.
• Chronic Absence - is missing an extended amount of school for any reason, and includes both excused and unexcused absences. Although no standard definition exists, it is recommended that a chronic absence is missing 10 percent or more of school in an academic year.

Student Attendance Review Team - SART

• Once the student is considered a habitual truant (3rd Step Truant) or has an excessive number of absences for illness, the student will be referred to the Associate Principal who will arrange for a Student Attendance Review Team (SART) Meeting.
  • Team members may and should consist of administrator, student, parent, school counselor, teacher, attendance liaison and/or school psychologist.
  • A corrective action plan will be developed with parental input.
  • The student will again be directed to attend all classes unless excused for legal reason.
  • The parents or guardians and student will be informed that failure to follow this directive will be considered “defiance of authority” and the next incident may lead to loss of extracurricular and co-curricular eligibility as well as a referral to law enforcement.
  • Alternative programs, including the need for additional counseling will be discussed.

Student Attendance Review Board - SARB

• Refer for School Attendance Review Board Hearing (SARB) once your school has exhausted all possibilities of support/monitoring for student and family, and the interventions have not produced any significant improvement in attendance. Student is now on his/her 5th Step of Truancy and was arrested on the 4th Step by school site SRO. The SARB is a community/school program designed to meet the needs of youth with attendance and behavior problems. The MUHSD Review Board is comprised of the CWA Director, School Psychologist, School Counselor, School Resource Officer, School Nurse, MUHSD Homeless Youth Liaison, Merced County Mental Health, Merced County Human Services, Merced County Probation Department and Chowchilla Department of Corrections.

* Please note, If the CWA Office doesn’t receive enough SARB referrals from school sites a week before the hearing, the CWA Director will cancel the SARB hearing and notify the SARB Committee.

* At a SARB hearing, a representative from the student’s school must present the case to the SARB Board.

Interventions before SARB referral - It is not expected that school sites must try all of the listed interventions but should logically try incentives that may work for the student depending on their issues in not attending school. Professionals from the above agencies make additional resources and service available to families at the SARB meeting.

___ Home Visit(s)
___ Referral to Sierra Vista/Mental Health Counselor
___ Adult or Student Mentoring
___ Student Attendance Review Team (SART)
___ Referral to School Nurse
___ Class Schedule Change
___ Modified Day
___ Parent Conference
___ Student Study Team (SST)
___ Parent Attending Classes
___ Wrap Around Services
___ Attendance Incentives
___ Student arrested by SRO on 4th step Truancy

*Home visits should be more than the Attendance Liaison informing the family at the door that the student needs to be in school. The Attendance Liaison and/or Administrator should conduct a “Wellness Check” at the student's home with their School Resource Officer.