By Del Stover
9/28/04 -- An army of school and community volunteers descended on more than 600 Houston homes one Saturday last month in an effort to persuade older truants and dropouts to return to school.
At one address, Houston school spokesperson Adriana Villarreal came across a 17-year-old girl stuck at home with two small children. The teen said she'd love to return to school but, since becoming a mother, she lacked the money for day care and the transportation to get to school.
For this teenager, these were insurmountable obstacles. But the Houston school system offers a variety of programs to help students in need, and it wasn't all that hard for volunteers to solve both problems for the girl. Her gratitude was heartwarming.
"Once she realized that someone did care, and there was something we could do to help her get back into school, she was bawling," Villarreal says. "She was so excited."
Houston is just one of many districts across the nation that have launched more rigorous programs to crack down on students who are missing valuable classroom time and at increasing risk of dropping out of school altogether.
Anti-truancy efforts are not new, but there are powerful new incentives spurring school officials' interest in keeping students in class. Not only does the No Child Left Behind Act require schools to boost student attendance and lower dropout rates, schools will never meet the law's annual yearly progress goals if students aren't in class learning.
"You can spend all the money you want on new books. You can completely change the curriculum. But it means nothing if the kids aren't in school," says Vincent Thompson, spokesperson for the Philadelphia school district. "That's why the school district and School Reform Commission are big believers that we've got to crack down on truancy."
Parents recruited
That crackdown began two years ago when Philadelphia school chief Paul Vallas invited community groups and parents to join in the fight to deal with the 10,000 to 15,000 students who are truant on any given day.
The school system contracted with community groups to train and hire 250 parents to serve as parent truancy officers. Their job is to hunt down students, find out why they're absent, find families help if they need it, and work to get children back in school.
The school system also operates two truancy centers, where wayward youth are sent if picked up by police, Thompson says. Because parents have to come to the centers to pick up their children, this serves to discourage future truancy.
In Milwaukee, 78 percent of high school students are classified as chronically truant (with five unexcused absences in a semester). Wisconsin state Superintendent of Public Instruction Elizabeth Burmaster this summer brought together educators, prosecutors, judges, social workers, business leaders, parents, and church leaders to seek a solution to the problem.
From that meeting came promises from school officials to work more closely with the district attorney's office to report serious truancy cases. Two schools agreed to pilot a program to use social workers or probation officers to more rigorously enforce truancy laws.
One of the nation's most comprehensive anti-truancy programs is in St. Paul, Minn. It was launched 10 years ago as a joint effort between the schools and county attorney's office.
Local school personnel make the first attempt to resolve a truancy problem, says Jean Hall, who coordinates the joint Truancy Intervention Program. If that fails, students and parents are "invited" to join with other families to hear the county attorney talk about the importance of attending school and explain the state's compulsory attendance law.
Legal action
After this meeting, about half of chronic truants get the message and mend their ways, Hall says. Those who continue to skip school are ordered to attend a hearing of the Student Attendance Review Team, which includes representatives of the county attorney office, juvenile probation office, and school district.
This team attempts to determine the underlying causes of the truancy and link children and parents with needed counseling or social services.
If this step fails, students and parents are taken to juvenile court, where a judge can order counseling or more punitive measures.
This system of escalating intervention has made a noticeable impact on the county's truancy problem, Hall says. Student absences are down 33 percent, and the number of chronic truants taken to court has declined by two-thirds.
Perhaps most encouraging, the number of chronic truants receiving help from social service agencies has climbed from 7 percent to 80 percent.
"The secret is to intervene early, and to have a series of interventions that over time will help identify the [problems] so we can get kids and their families the services they need," Hall says.
School truancy officers say the stereotype of the lazy kid who skips school to play at the arcade or spend the day watching television is simplistic. Deeper issues -- drug dependency, a troubled home, fear of bullies, a need to work and help support the family, or the frustration of academic failure -- usually are at the root of truancy.
That's not to say that officials aren't willing to crack down when necessary. This month, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced the state would begin denying driver's licenses to teenagers who miss seven or more days of class in any school year. Other states have instituted similar deterrents to truancy.
Meanwhile, local prosecutors are showing their willingness to enforce truancy laws. In Jefferson County, Ky., County Attorney Irv Maze recently charged 38 parents with allowing their children to skip school routinely.
"I've heard a lot of bad excuses, but there's no way a child . . . can make school unless the parent or guardian shows some leadership," he says.
The fight against truancy also is being fueled by research that shows a marked increase in delinquent and criminal behavior among youths unsupervised during the day. In Charlotte, N.C., for example, about 20 percent of residential burglary arrests involve suspects 15 years old or younger.
Social services
Despite such prosecutions, the goal isn't to be punitive -- but to get children back in school. And, in Jefferson County, the county attorney's office is working closely with school officials to nip truancy in the bud, says Barbara Dempsey, a school social worker who works with truants.
Long before prosecution is considered, she says, serious truancy cases are handled by social workers working out of seven community centers called Neighborhood Places. They house offices for various government agencies conveniently grouped to provide easy access to financial assistance, immunizations, medical exams, counseling, and other social services.
"Some things like enrollment paperwork or transportation can be barriers for kids," Dempsey says. "Other times, there are some kind of financial problems going on. There are kids who don't have proper clothing to attend school. They haven't had their school physicals and immunizations. We connect families with the resources they need."
Flexibility is an important asset in dealing with truancy, says Villarreal of Houston. In one case, for example, a 17-year-old had skipped school because he shared an apartment with his sister and worked nights to make ends meet.
Several immigrants told similar stories of financial woe, difficulties with the language, and embarrassment at being assigned to classes with younger children.
In response, the school board Sept. 9 unanimously approved the opening of a new school for immigrants with weekend and evening hours and more customized instruction for students who might otherwise drop out of school altogether.
"There are so many stories, Villarreal says. "The reality is we're living in an environment, where children have diverse needs, and the school system is trying to be creative and caring by providing the best services and education we possibly can. We need a more customized education system that can meet these students' needs."