“California is facing an attendance crisis,” says California Attorney General Kamala Harris in a statewide report on truancy in public schools. Released Sept. 30, the report reveals a 29.6 percent statewide elementary school truancy rate during the 2012-2013 school year.
The report also found that truancy costs school districts up to $1.4 billion in funding per year, while dropouts cost the state $46.4 billion per year once incarceration costs, lost economic productivity, and reduced tax revenue are factored in. Additionally, the research uncovered that for every five days a student is truant, he is seven percent less likely to graduate from high school.
Truant behavior is defined by state law as unexcused absence from school for three days, or being tardy for more than 30 minutes of class without excuse three or more times in one school year.
To reduce truancy rates, Harris recommends that schools create monitors and track truancy more efficiently, intervene immediately after identifying a truant student, form official organizations to engage hard-to-reach students, and implement programs to communicate the importance of attendance to parents of elementary school students.
Bay Area schools have implemented programs that focus on early intervention and individualized approaches to combat truancy. Programs such as the San Mateo County School Attendance Review Board (SARB) and the San Jose Truancy Abatement/Burglary Suppression program (TABS) use different tactics to increase attendance rates.
Reintroduced in 2009 after a spike in truancy and crime rates, the San Mateo County SARB program focuses on solving students’ problems and increasing parental communication and awareness. SARB intervenes after several school and district level attempts prove unsuccessful with the student.
“During SARB meetings, we ask questions to solve the problem so students can be in school and be successful. Recommendations are made to fit the family,” says Aragon Assistant Principal Joe Mahood. “We all come up will a good solution together. Nobody is pressured; the whole thing is for people to agree.”
For the most extreme cases, SARB has the authority to petition for court action, where parents may be fined or punished for negligence. As most cases do not go to this extreme, the structure of SARB allows students easy access to the help they need, whether it be support programs, referral to student study teams, or counseling. Although the action plan depends on the student, the end goal remains the same: getting the student back to school.
Superintendent Karen Philip, former San Mateo County Office of Education Deputy Superintendent, helped reestablish SARB in 2009. In a county e-newsletter, she stated, “The SARB is effective because it is a collaborative effort–the result of many agencies in the country coming together to provide solutions for truancy. Truancy is really a red flag … so if we can get to the root of the problem and get that student to stay in school, we may avert other problems that are potentially more serious.”
For many school districts, student attendance factors into funding from the state. Although SMUHSD is a basic aid district, meaning that funding is not based on attendance, attendance remains an important issue. Mahood says, “The reason we deal with attendance is for student success. We know if a student does not go to class, he probably won’t graduate.”
Even with such progress, Aragon’s published truancy rate for 2011-2012 is 46.4 percent; the district-wide rate is 47.2 percent. The administration declined to comment on these figures.
Recognizing that habits form early, San Mateo has begun an effort to communicate the importance of attendance to elementary students. Nancy Magee, County Office of Education Administrator of Board Support and Community Relations, says, “San Mateo County just posted Attendance Awareness month in September, and we had lots of information go out to all the elementary schools to explain to parents that being absent when you’re in kindergarten or first grade causes as much difficulty for the student as it does when you’re in high school.”
As truant elementary students miss large amounts of instruction, accumulated losses lead to lower reading levels and less successful academic careers. By stopping truancy early on, schools can optimize a student’s academic achievement and lower dropout rates.
In San Jose, the police department’s Truancy Abatement/Burglary Suppression (TABS) takes a different approach and focuses on immediate intervention. TABS utilizes police officers to patrol the streets and identify truant students. Officers then take the students to the processing center to either wait for their parents or guardians or be sent back to school. Through this method, crime is prevented, and parents become aware of their child’s truant behavior.
Through intervention, prevention, and solutions tailored to the individual, school districts and truancy programs seek to combat the “attendance crisis” plaguing schools in California. However, there may be another solution—as Mahood puts it: “Just go to class.”
