Truancy: Getting tough on parents may help, but we have to connect kids to schools
Students can’t learn if they don’t come to school. Atlanta intends to turn up the heat on parents whose children miss school. It intends to enforce a tough 2009 ordinance that allows a $1,000 fine and up to 60 days in jail when students skip school .
In writing about truancy policies over the years as an editorial writer, I have found inconsistent and ineffectual policies that kick in too late to deter kids from dropping out. This is a critical issue because today’s dropouts become tomorrow’s prison inmates. Nationwide, 71 percent of the prison population never finished high school. When you look at the arrest records of inmates, the first charge is typically truancy.
Despite all the hand wringing over intransigent truants and indifferent parents, there are some responses that have made a difference. One is having enough social workers. Under the staggering caseloads they now carry, school social workers are expected to be miracle workers. We need more social workers in our schools.
In most truancy cases, parents will get their children to school if a social worker knocks on their door once or twice and mentions the possibility of jail. Once those kids are back in their classes, social workers can concentrate on the chronic truants whose parents can’t be coerced into cooperation.
The consequences should take effect quickly, not when the student has amassed a month of absences and is hopelessly behind. And the consequences should focus on catching the children up in their schoolwork, rather than on suspensions that only push them further behind.
Studies find that while tumultuous home lives contribute to truancy, students themselves put the greater blame on their school lives. They cite irrelevant courses, strained relations with teachers, social isolation and their inability to do well in their classes. Truancy-prevention programs have to figure out a way to engage these kids in school and to connect them to other people in the building. As straightforward and obvious as those goals sound, the designs of Georgia schools actually work against them.
Our schools have grown too big for teachers to know their students very well. It’s easy for kids to slip off the radar screen. And the increasing emphasis on test scores gives schools greater incentives to see these chronic truants drop out than remain in class.
But there are notable exceptions. Many Georgia counties are doing a lot to keep kids on track, from paying home visits to providing rides from after-school tutoring.
Atlanta plans to address the chronic truants by raising the stakes for their parents by enforcing its 2009 law, which was enacted because of the scope of the city’s truancy problem. Almost 44 percent of high school students missed 10 or more days of school last year, up from 40 percent in 2009-10, according to the AJC story. That’s compared with about 25 percent in Fulton County.
The 2-year-old rule has seldom been enforced until now, said Atlanta City Council President Ceasar Mitchell, who helped create the ordinance. Mitchell said the goal is to get the attention of parents, to educate them about the importance of good attendance and to help connect them with social programs to ensure their children are regularly going to school.
But critics say the approach is flawed and could cause more worry for families already in distress. “Given the crisis we’re facing in terms of truancy, we could haul droves of parents into court,” Mitchell said. “That is not our objective.”
Research shows that students with better attendance are more likely to earn a high school diploma. But unexcused school absences are a persistent problem in metro Atlanta and across the state despite an array of interventions and deterrence programs.
In Cobb, 8 percent to 10 percent of students log more than 15 absences each school year. In Fulton, almost 25 percent of high school students missed 10 or more days. So far this year, about 8 percent of Gwinnett’s high school students have logged 10 or more absences, both excused and unexcused, according to a school spokesman. DeKalb County, Powder Springs and Kennesaw have ordinances similar to what’s in Atlanta, according to school and county officials.
There’s also punishments built into state law. Georgia students with 10 or more unexcused absences can lose their driver’s license. A query by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found students in virtually every county had their licenses yanked because of missed days. Gwinnett, the state’s largest school system, had the most absence-related license suspensions in 2010, with 2,269 out of a statewide total of 12,974.
After five unexcused absences, a parent can be fined up to $100 and sentenced to 30 days in jail or community service, according to state law. The most severe cases are referred to Juvenile Court.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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85 comments Add your comment
Ronin
December 19th, 2011
1:51 am
Interesting: forced education, with a penalty (drivers license) for lack of compliance.
Maureen, your prior post on education track was on point. ‘
The masses are grouped into a class for the teacher to handle. College or trade school, there is no specific focus. Simply, teach to the middle. The top rated students are bored, the low end students don’t care.
Truancy isn’t a problem, if you teach a course that interests the student.
Technical classes (auto repair, HVAC, hair stylist) should be started in 9th or 10th grade in district schools. The problem is, this would cut into the “college” level programs like Lanier Technical School.
For 12 years,kids receive a free education. When they actually need to learn a job skill, they need to qualify for a HOPE scholarship. K-12 schools are failing to teach basis job and financial skills.
Dr NO / Mr Sunshine
December 19th, 2011
6:35 am
Yeah thats the idea. Hire more social workers/waste more $$$. Why not toss the irresponsible party/parents in jail, put the affected children in an orphanage and be done with it.
The State cant solve these lack of character issues.
Sam
December 19th, 2011
7:06 am
I’m really talking about older kids here, but I think it speaks for society in general: you can’t force intelligence on people. Some people choose ignorance.
ScienceTeacher671
December 19th, 2011
7:11 am
It’s not a one-size-fits-all problem, and there’s no one solution.
Some of the chronically truant teenagers are students who have been socially promoted all their lives, and who have never learned the skills they need to succeed in high school. They feel overwhelmed and “stupid” in classes they can’t master, so they don’t attend except sometimes to socialize. These are the students who will drop out without some drastic intervention.
Some of the chronically truant are those who are very bright and are bored by the “teach to the middle” classes, but are not motivated enough to take the challenging classes such as honors, AP, or IB.
Some of the chronically truant know they aren’t going to go to college, and they don’t really like “book learnin’” at all. They would love to be in a system like than in many other countries, where those who don’t have the skills or motivation to go to college go directly to a job or technical school. Unfortunately, that’s not available here. Some of these students actually go to work with family members who are mechanics, plumbers, landscapers, etc. instead of going to school, but they attend enough to keep their driver’s licenses.
Some of the chronically truant have home lives that aren’t conducive to going to bed early and getting up early (think people in & out, adults partying loudly until late, parent(s) working nights and students are responsible for younger siblings, etc.) and if they miss the bus, there’s no one to take them to school. Many of them could possibly try harder, but don’t see much reason to do so.
Yeah, I’ve missed some, but those are the major categories at our school.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
December 19th, 2011
8:19 am
ST671’s comments, as usual, are illuminating. And they’re being noted.
nelson
December 19th, 2011
8:43 am
I would let truants go, no question about it. It frees up space for motivated students.And who knows, truants can find work that is infinitely more rewarding. Which reminds me of a story, this lad went to school every day. The teacher never called on him so he put two desks together in the rear of the room laid down on top and went to sleep. He would have been far better off working some place than being in school. Who is the most motivated student in school, it is the one on the basketball team. That is real motivation,
Pluto
December 19th, 2011
9:15 am
Here’ an idea; make the parents attend class as a surrogate for their darlings and then teach their kids at home? Kinda like home schooling but this way both the parents and kids are learning. Problem solved.
Cosby
December 19th, 2011
9:40 am
Ahh…get the parents involved…but wait, does our wonderful government pay people to have kids with no responsibility..need to look at the source of the problem.
carlosgvv
December 19th, 2011
9:55 am
Sometime ago Fulton County decided to get tough on those who were sent jury notices but didn’t show up at the Court. Then, nothing more was heard from them. This get tough on parents will have the same results.
To Fled from Good Mother
December 19th, 2011
10:06 am
Fled, your letter brought a mountain of tears to my eyes. I am so so so glad you made it through all your challenges. Your note is inspiring. Thank you for sharing it.
Gwinnnettian
December 19th, 2011
10:13 am
Yes, there are many reasons that cause students to become truant, but it all begins in the home! Students from single parents and poor parents who teach values in the home attend school regularly. If you’ve been reading this blog long enough, you know teachers believe the home environment is the one factor we have no control over, but has the greatest impact on student achievement. I think the fines are a little stifrf – perhaps $250 the first occurance and increase by $250 after that. Take it out of the welfare checks and you will get some attention!
Ron
December 19th, 2011
10:17 am
How do you catch up students on the curriculum if they’ve been absent for over 10 days? Why should they still be included in the schools’ standardizing testing results? Some in these posts have recommended alternative schools or similar, and that would be a sensible approach for those students who don’t want to learn all the time (maybe just part-time?). But to reinstate them into the general classroom and expect the teacher to reteach or RTI is crazy!
Hcain
December 19th, 2011
11:13 am
A classroom is like a 10 ft deep swimming pool.
The teacher is the lifeguard/swim instructor.
The students are beginning, adequate, good, and great swimmers that the teacher is trying to move to the next level.
Now, we want to round-up non-swimmers and put them in the pool WITHOUT affecting the others?
I think I’d pull my kid out of the pool!
Good Mother
December 19th, 2011
11:35 am
Responsibility, you asked “Why do we have to continue to create more positions (such as social workers) in schools and government entities to ensure that people take responsibility for their own lives?”
Here is your answer. Please listen.
Because hiring a social worker is a lot less expensive and much better for society than hiring a police officer to arrest the high school drop-out and much less expensive than building a prison to contain the drop-out when he gets there.
It’s very very simple. Please get it in your head.
School and all the expenses that go along with prevention and intervention are much better options and a much smarter choice than incarceration.
Mountain Man
December 19th, 2011
11:41 am
Any child that has missed more than 10 days should repeat the grade (yea, right, like that will ever happen). Lower the age of being able to withdrw from school to 12. Take the money spent on schools and teachers for these people who don’t want to learn and build prisons. Lock them up and throw away the key. If they can’t see that an education is good for them, they need to get out of the way of those that do.
Mountain Man
December 19th, 2011
11:43 am
“Because hiring a social worker is a lot less expensive and much better for society than hiring a police officer to arrest the high school drop-out and much less expensive than building a prison to contain the drop-out when he gets there.”
Problem is, these people STILL end up arrested and in prison DESPITE the social workers.
Tonya C.
December 19th, 2011
11:44 am
GM:
You assume the return on the investment pans out. It usually doesn’t. Quite possible in elementary school, maybe in middle school, but the chances are slim by the time you get to high school. We have pushed prevention and intervention FOR YEARS and the results still leave a lot to be desired. And in the meantime, the kids who want to work intrinsically are being left behind.
How do I know? My husband in now a special education teacher in an alternative school, and before that worked in both the juvenille and adult probation/parole fields. Poor parenting is hard to overcome, and we need to accept that the success rate of doing so without tracking is low.
What?
December 19th, 2011
12:04 pm
MARTA Police do a great job with catching truant students from the DeKalb Alternative School and other DeKalb high schools.
The DeKalb County School Police Department, with its two chiefs, nine detectives, four admin assistants, and almost 200 school resource officers, do nothing to combat truancy. Many in the school police dept. are related to BOE members and Central Office administrators. The department’s performance is simply embarrassing.
The DCSS Central Office refuses to confront parents and hold them accountable. Heck, they instruct teachers that they cannot give a zero for a grade, even if a student refuses to do the assigned work.
The new superintendent has her work cut out for her. I sincerely hope she has the fortitude to make all the necessary changes to the administration and school operations, including the poor performing school police department.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
December 19th, 2011
2:11 pm
What?,
She will need COURAGE in addition to fortitude to accomplish her mission.
@ Tonya C from Good Mother
December 19th, 2011
5:12 pm
Tonya C writes about intevention through social workers “Quite possible in elementary school, maybe in middle school, but the chances are slim by the time you get to high school.”
Of course. Early and consistent intervention is much more effective than later intervention. No one, especially me, is advocating that we wait until high school to intervene.
You’ve stated the obvious and are preaching to the choir.
@ Mountain Man from Good Mother
December 19th, 2011
5:17 pm
MM writes “Problem is, these people STILL end up arrested and in prison DESPITE the social workers.”
These people.
These people?
You mean not YOU. NOT YOUR people?
Every child from every race and every socio economic group and every subculture is at risk. Money, two parents, legitimacy and white skin do not prevent incarceration.
We as a society must do the right thing by America’s children. Democracy depends on educated, intelligent, caring citizens. We cannot grow and maintain a democracy by only caring about YOUR people — whatever group “YOUR” represents.
We need to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.
And even if you are a cold, uncaring, rapbid conservative you still need to do the right thing — because it is simply less expensive to society.
Mahopinion
December 19th, 2011
6:21 pm
The only reason the schools “care” about truancy is because it cuts in to their bottom line. No sense denying it. Very day on this blog you read rants from teachers complaining about the rotten kids, indifferent parents, horrid administrators ad nauseum. You think these people would be thrilled to not have to put up with the little juvenile delinquents that are skipping school…
ScienceTeacher671
December 19th, 2011
7:28 pm
Of course, one problem with putting truant students in the workforce is that we already have 10% or so unemployment – adding teenagers to the ranks of those seeking jobs will certainly increase that percentage, unless we find some way to make “jobs Americans won’t do” more appealing to those with few or no skills.
One reason for the expansion of high schools in the early part of the 20th century was to get teenagers out of the workforce, particularly during the Great Depression, when they were competing with adults and parents for jobs.
old school doc
December 19th, 2011
9:27 pm
Was it Brazil that tied family benefits to school attendance and regular medical check ups? If I remember right, that sort of program helped. Instead of punishing sorry parents, why not incentivise (?sp) them- ie to get more TANF your child can have only a few absences, etc…. Especially at the early grades these anti- truancy programs could really make a difference. By high school it is almost always too late.
Tonya C.
December 19th, 2011
9:33 pm
Good mother:
This intervention already exists. And the results are still poor. I might be more jaded because my spouse has tried to show alternatives and has repeatedly been shot down by the majority of parents and the kids. He has hosted career days and brought in speakers even as a juvenile probation officer, and the kids were less than moved. I think people have great ideas, but the reality is that many don’t and won’t give a damn no matter what is implemented.
As a black woman, I see this everyday in my own community. The apathy of the parents in our Title I cluster is startling to say the least. And the hand-holding done to get parents to be active irks me. The school even provides childcare during many of its seminars to bring people in, and the numbers in attendance are still beyond pathetic.
I still say bringing back orphanages should be considered. Better to intervene before poor parenting taints the child than try to resuscitate a damaged being.
@Tonay C from Good Mother
December 20th, 2011
10:54 am
You hit the nail on the head, Tonya. You’re right.
You are jaded.
Career days and speakers don’t address lifetimes of hurt. School counselors need to be trained child psycholigists as the one in my child’s school is.
Thinking that a “career day” is going to help a distraught student is naive. Looks like your hubby doesn’t know what he’s doing.
I dont’ care what color you are, Tonya. It isn’t relevant to the conversation. It doesn’t add to your credibility.
. .
Laura
December 20th, 2011
11:20 am
Go teach in an alternative school for a day, Good Mother, and see how sunshine and roses it is. I dare you not to be jaded. I taught in one for three and a half years, and the only thing that got to any of these kids was showing them that you cared, especially through bringing in guest speakers and the like.
I brought in one of the Tuskegee Airmen to speak. The kids were absolutely enthralled with him and wouldn’t let him off of the stage because they were asking him so many questions. Lots of kids thanked me for bringing him in, because no one at their home schools cared enough to even PRETEND to get someone in there to talk to the students about anything, regardless of the topic.
BTW, our career days helped high schoolers get jobs to get on their feet out of school, but I guess putting those on every day was “naive.”
Before you knock what these people who work with troubled youth do, walk a mile in their shoes. Be screamed at by sixth graders. Try to explain to a twelve year old the dangers of joining the Crips. Break up a few drug deals. Then, why don’t you come back to the forum to show how un-jaded you are.
Laura
December 20th, 2011
11:21 am
“Every year,” not “every day” in regards to the career fairs.
Tonya C.
December 20th, 2011
12:47 pm
Laura,
I no longer pay attention to people like her. They offer suggestions that people have tried, repeatedly in most instances. It’s great to offer advice, but I LIVE this and see it everday. Through my husband’s eyes and experiences, in my neighborhood, and in my own family. I hope for the best, but again…bad parenting is a MONSTER to overcome. Even if you get in the trenches each and everyday, there is no guarantee that all the love and caring in the world will work.
My husband has had his life threatened this year. He has been cursed at and cursed out. Despite the numerous presentations, job shadowing, and support he has offered these students. Good Mother, I am presenting some real facts about how this actually plays out, but whatever. Rubber hits road, and your view is tainted by your experiences. It is great you were the exception, but an exception does not a rule make.
Tonya C.
December 20th, 2011
12:50 pm
And Good Mother:
My husband knows what he is doing. This was just an EXAMPLE of the opportunities he tried to afford the kids who would otherwise never see what they could be if they tried. But nevermind…you love to insult as a defense, and I was the fool to attempt to engage you in a rational conversation.
Don't Feed the Good Mother Troll
December 20th, 2011
1:23 pm
@Tonya C:…”you [Good Mother] love to insult as a defense…” I see you have run into GM on earlier blogs. As trolls do, he/she loves to stir up bloggers with self-righteous insults, as with you in his/her 10:54 am posting here.
She did that on the Dec. 17 blog, “Teacher Residency programs,” where he/she spoke of the APS teachers his/her children had with their illiterate language, and from the prolonged examples it was clear he/she meant “black English”…which many bloggers did not take well.
Yet on an earlier blog, “DeKalb board members to voters: Thanks for SPLOST vote,” GM wrote on Nov. 23, 1:46 pm: “We’ve had this tax for fifteen years, I think. There have been ZERO improvements to my child’s school. They just continue to park another beat up trailer out back to “accomodate” [sic] the students. I don’t trust them with my tax money.” Lies, lies, lies.
GM also includes a personal sob story for every blog topic, as witness his/her 11:17 am, Dec. 19 entry on this Truancy blog. More lies.
People like your husband are to be greatly admired.
Dr. Monica Henson
December 20th, 2011
10:21 pm
Maureen, I couldn’t agree more that we HAVE to engage kids in order to keep them in school. Much of what occurs during the traditional school day is not relevant to learning, unfortunately. A substantial number of the students at greatest risk of dropping out are exposed, year after year, to the weakest teachers in their schools. By the time they get to high school, they are cynical, disengaged, and ready to bolt the day they reach legal age to drop out.
Some students are bored silly by being death-marched through the seat time routine to earn credits. They have to wait on the rest of the class to catch up to where they are, and no matter how well they are able to master material, they are forced into an arbitrary number of days and hours in order to earn credits. This situation is applicable to a surprisingly high number of students. If they have parents who insist on playing the school game anyway, then they are not likely to quit school, but those without strong influence from parents will leave if they can.
The dropout profile is quite complex. There are numerous cases of students who drop out because they have to due to family circumstances, not because they are disengaged academically or socially. Teen parents frequently drop out. Some students quit school to go to work to help their working single mothers put food on the table.
Whatever the case, we have to figure out a way to stanch the flow of dropouts into the school-to-prison and school-to-public assistance pipeline that exists. Giving kids more of the same isn’t the answer. We need new solutions. Hybrid learning environments are one way to offer kids a compressed school day and the ability to move at their own pace. Educational centers that provide learning shifts, online coursework that can be accessed from anywhere…these are the types of changes that can help address the problem.
Frankie
December 21st, 2011
9:10 am
Society has allowed these kids to forget about accountability, the same accountability we remove from the parents.
If i got in trouble at school and my mother or father had to take off work to deal with me…how many more times do you think i was going to get in trouble after i got up off the floor and picked up the one or two teeth that got knocked out inthe process.
NO i am not advocating violence.
Point is the parents do not have jobs, so when Bubba or shenequa skip school, the parent doesn’t care becasue they themselves probably did the same thing as a child.
The rules need to be toughter, and ENFORCED. we build all of these alternative schools and house the these truantkids, require these non working parents to be on site or go to jail and the kid goes to foster care or to jail also.
For workning parents make them miss as many days as their child missed school. I know it drums up a whole lot more issues, but you gotta start somewhere.
Addind Social workers is a step, but these social workers have issues to and too many cases for one person…
Don’t have allthe answers but holding the RESPONSIBLE PARTIES ACCOUNTABLE IS A START….
Ole Guy
December 23rd, 2011
12:22 am
A few buds and I decided to skip “Ole Mr So-and So’s” class, scurry over to the gas station, across from school, for a Coke, and get back in time for the next class, the teacher of which was not to be considered a “pushover”. We made it back in time, feeling smug in the knowledge that we had “gotten away with it”. Mr “Hardsix”, the teacher who was known to take no shux from no damn kids, directed us to report to Mr “So-and-So who, closing the door, unceremoneously wailed hell out of us, and sent us back to “Mr Hardsix’es” class.
The three of us boneheads, that day, realized a new-found respect for both “So-and-So” and “Hardsix”.
N. GA Teacher
December 23rd, 2011
11:17 pm
Schools can’t solve the truancy problem, particularly in high school. All they can do is call the parents, who usually are unavailable by phone or just apathetic when you DO reach them, but occasionally you get perfectly good parents who simply were unaware their kids were skipping. One parent I called was unaware his girl had skipped 12 days! This good parent apparently had a showdown with the kid, who the following day entered the classroom and raged at me for “telling her father” and “ruining her life”!! I dryly replied that I was just doing my job, which is true. I was appalled that our attendance clerk did not make the call sooner!! After talking this over with many students between classes and at lunch (I would never veer off the standards in class, of course!), I became convinced that he best thing schools can do is offer a more compelling curriculum. Certain kids love construction class, and drama, and Band, and Art, and agriculture and computer apps. Why are we hammering them with so many traditional (for who?) core courses? It is a disgrace that just one semester of physical fitness is required to graduate. Kids, especially Title I kids,who end to be the dropouts, need more exposure to life skills: occupational, social, cultural, etc. We need strong coop programs that require them to continue success in a half-day of school while they work the other half. We need more flexible scheduling. Why not offer an extra period each day? In other words, instead of making every kid arrive at 8 a.m., a truancy and tardy nightmare, allow kid to select a 3:00-4:15 class. Teachers have to stay that long after school anyway. Our teaching load could be the same- our hours could just be rearranged, with our usual before-and-after-school times swapped with an extra planning period in the middle of our days. In addition, the state needs strongly-enforced laws that tie a valid drivers license privilege to truancy and passing grades.