Wagga students choosing to skip school is a growing concern for the city's educators.
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The state's department of education has rules allowing students to be absent for legitimate reasons, which needs to be accounted for by a parent.
But what was once a parents choice to give their child a day-off, is now driven by the students themselves.
Wagga Christian College principal Phillip Wilson has heard cases of students deciding when to stay home rather than the parent holding the power.
"There are cases where children know what they want and decide they will not be going to school," he said.
"Child-choice is becoming the main reason for absent days as opposed to adult-choice and we need to figure out how we can give parents the courage to take back that decision."
The main reasons for a student choosing to ditch school include demanding workloads or an unfinished assignment with a nearing deadline.
"They stay home to finish an assignment, which usually happens on school carnival days," Mr Wilson said.
However, there are concerns that frequent absent days will not only impact a student's performance in the classroom, but also their social skills.
My School data shows strong attendance rates among the city's primary students in semester one of 2018.
The majority of primary schools showed that more than 80 per cent of students met a 90 per cent attendance threshold where as the secondary schools - excluding combined schools - struggled to push above this mark.
Mr Phillips the outcome could narrowed down to workload and prioritising social media over education.
"One thing I have noticed is teenagers are overdone with testing and are heavily influenced by social media and the feeling they need to keep up with friends rather than do their homework," he said.
"When students are younger they want to do the best they can for the teachers, but as they get older they cannot be bothered."
Rather than judging students for struggling with the workload, Mr Phillips said educators need to find out the problems for each individual and work towards solutions.
"It is about saying to each child, where are you at? And how can we get you where you need to be?" he said.
"There is also value in the parents choosing to support education. Once the kid knows that it is valued then they will make a better attempt at it."
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