News from OSDFS
Several school districts from around the country are using
OSDFS grant funds to operate truancy reduction activities.
These school-based programs are similar in that they recognize
a need to address truancy early and consistently. Also, each
program is tailored to meet the needs as determined by its local
community and school priorities and resources.
Allamakee Community School District - Waukon,
Iowa
In 2004, ACS used funds from its Safe Schools/Healthy Students
grant to hire a truancy officer to create and oversee the implementation
of a series of attendance guidelines. While the district,
with approximately 700 junior and senior high school students,
has always maintained a high attendance rate, district employees
recognize good attendance translates to good grades.
The district uses a series of benchmarks that trigger certain
responses from the school, such as phone calls to parents, home
visits, or referrals to juvenile court. The program consists of four
components:
- Community Involvement: The district uses public service announcements that encourage school attendance. The district also works with the area chamber of commerce to promote the message at community events.
- Parental Involvement: The district recommends that parents notify the school if their child will be absent from school and not to allow a three-day absence without contacting the school. The school notifies parents if students miss a class and then conducts meetings with both the parents and the student to encourage parents to take responsibility for their child’s attendance at school.
- Consequences: The truancy officer maintains a close working relationship with the county attorney to streamline the process for addressing disregard for the local school attendance laws.
- Incentives: The district uses various student incentives from year to year, such as awarding students that have three or fewer absences with a half grade increase (i.e., improving a grade of B- to B) for each class in which they met the attendance benchmark.
Worcester Public Schools - Worcester, Mass.
The Worcester Public School system diligently monitors student
attendance with its well-established truancy prevention program
funded in part by a Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant. The
school notifies parents and guardians on a daily basis of any
unexcused or unexplained absence. If, after five consecutive days,
there is no reasonable response or explanation by the parent or
guardian, a Notice of Truancy will be completed and sent home
with copies also faxed to the School Safety office.
School staff members work with parents and students to solve individual barriers to regular school attendance. These efforts can include daily phone calls, notices sent to the home, home visits, school conferences, and mediation when necessary. If appropriate, a Student Support Process meeting is convened to develop more in-depth interventions to assist the student. This can involve referrals to community-based providers of various essential services that could help alleviate the problems contributing to the student’s truancy.
If truancy continues despite early efforts by the school, an appropriate action is filed with the juvenile court. Depending on the action filed, either the clerk magistrate or a probation officer conducts a preliminary inquiry with the student and guardian to determine how to proceed with the case—continue the case at the clerk magistrate level, elevate it to the formal court, or dismiss it.
Lansing School District - Lansing, Mich.
The Attendance Intervention program is designed to use a graduated sequence of interventions to encourage and assist students, ages 12 through 15, and their families to develop and maintain regular school attendance. Safe and Drug-Free Schools state formula funds are used, in part, to target those students who, due to chronic truancy, are referred to truancy court and screened for drug use. Those students who test positive for drug use are referred to a drug treatment program, periodically screened for continued drug use, provided with counseling services, and monitored for subsequent truancy. Students are released from court jurisdiction only after they have maintained regular school attendance and stopped using drugs. Since truancy is a gateway behavior to drug abuse, the program is focused on decreasing the use of drugs by participating students. Occasionally, parents also are identified as drug users and are placed under court jurisdiction as well. The court monitors parents until they test free of drug use.
During the 2005–06 school year, 64 students (37 high school students and 27 middle school students) and three parents were identified as drug users and participated in the program. By the end of the school year, 48 (75 percent) of the students and one parent tested free of drug use and were dismissed by the court. Sixteen students remained under court jurisdiction, and the two parents who did not test free of drugs lost custody of their children and remained under court supervision.
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