Green Bay's municipal judge is taking a new approach against students who repeatedly skip class. He's levying stiff fines against their parents.

"You've been charged with habitual truancy. How do you plead on that?" Judge Jerry Hanson asked at a recent hearing.

Each week, Judge Hanson is at a Green Bay high school holding truancy court.

Each year, he issues more than 500 truancy tickets to students, yet attendance continues to be a serious problem.

Judge Hanson says often it's the same reason why: "A parent or guardian who either encourages or contributes to the truancy of an individual... They're not helping them along."

So this year, Hanson is asking the students he sees questions about their parents. He asks one, "What does she do to try to help you go to school?"

He then has police issue $366 Contributing to Truancy citations to parents he feels deserve them.

"It's a good chunk of money," the judge says.

After receiving a citation, parents must show up at truancy court with their child and try to work things out with the judge, and they might even avoid paying the fine. If they don't show up, they could ultimately face an arrest warrant.

Social workers at Preble High School stand behind the hard-line approach.

"The school can only do so much, and the parents have to do their part in trying to get kids to school, and when we've tried to contact parents and they're not helping us then I think it needs to be taken to the next level," social worker Kelly Rowe said.

Rowe says right now close to 100 students at Preble alone have serious attendance problems which could prove costly to their parents.

Courtesy WBAY