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More than 2,000 absent Tuesday

By George Diepenbrock (Contact)

Posted Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Some Lawrence public school students took an extra day Tuesday to celebrate the Jayhawks’ national championship.

The Lawrence school district reported 2,134 excused and unexcused absences Tuesday, out of about 10,000 students. In the four prior Tuesdays, the district had an average of 790 absences, said school district spokeswoman Julie Boyle.

Tuesday’s numbers are less than April 19, 2007, when 3,815 students were taken out of school early by parents because of bomb threats.

Kansas public schools can only cancel classes for an emergency such as inclement weather, and they must have a certain number of classroom days.

Rebecca Mason, Central Junior High School’s attendance secretary, said Tuesday morning that due to the number of calls, she had not yet had time to enter figures into the school’s computer system.

Mike Hill, Free State High School assistant principal, said in the morning the school had more than 500 excused and unexcused absences. Free State’s enrollment is just more than 1,200 students.

“We’ve had hundreds of phone calls (Tuesday) to our attendance office,” Hill said.

At New York School in east Lawrence, administrative assistant Sandy Unruh said the elementary had about 15 more absences than normal.

Lawrence administrators and staff members said they were competing with the 3 p.m. public celebration at Memorial Stadium for coach Bill Self and the team.

Several students at the stadium said they were glad to take part in the first basketball championship celebration since 1988.

KU administrators canceled classes Tuesday.

— 6News anchor/reporter Mark Boyle contributed to this report.