The petition wars are on Students at Green Bay West High School gather outside the building during a lunch period (photo by H. Marc Larson). By Monique Balas News-Chronicle Green Bay is a town divided over lunches. Barb Kiefer is leading a petition drive in favor of closing down the four high schools in the Green Bay Area Public School district during lunch hour, in an effort to lower the district's 31 percent truancy rate among its high school students. Her opponents are starting a petition of their own. Currently, the district is one of two in the county that allow high school students to leave during their lunch period. Kiefer has had a big head start. Since the spring, her petition has garnered about 700 signatures, and she plans to present them all at a school board meeting Oct. 27. But now Green Bay mom Patty Sherman wants to counter Kiefer with her own petition. Sherman said her recent participation on Bill LuMaye's morning radio show on WTAQ-AM 1360 and an article in The News-Chronicle attracted enough people who support open campuses that she thought she'd go ahead and start her own petition. "More people started to speak up against it," Sherman said, "so I've decided to go ahead and collect those signatures." Sherman's two sons attend Southwest High School and are actively involved with extracurricular activities. She doesn't want to see them lose their valuable 52-minute lunch period - a time she says is a valuable break in their busy days - just to punish a minority of students who are causing trouble. She's not sure that open campuses are causing truancy rates to go up, and besides, Sherman said the state's definition of truancy has changed. "Part of the information about truancy rates is they changed laws in the last few years, the way you define a truant is different, so they have to do a better job of these numbers," Sherman said. "We're not comparing apples to apples anymore." Until a few years ago, truancy was defined by unexcused absences that totaled 10 or more school days within a semester, Sherman said. Now students must be unexcused for all or part of only five days. "So it looks like our numbers spiked when it fact they really didn't," she said. "We're not in favor (of closing the campuses) at least until more research can be done to say that truancy is a cause of open campuses." FYI: To sign a petition in favor of keeping Green Bay high school campuses open for lunch, contact Patty Sherman at 498-9123 or [email protected]. Barb Kiefer can be reached at 433-0826 or [email protected]. The petition will be presented at a Green Bay School Board meeting at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 27 at Jackson Elementary School, 1306 S. Ridge Road.