[Youth-list] Truancy focus in NH

[JMRab at aol.com]

BRAVO. 8% might not sound like much, but it's a ton of students in the  wrong 
places during the day. JMG
P.S. It's not just about preventing violence either. It would be good for  NH 
to examine the reading and other CMT scores of those who are habitually  
truant and also out on suspension and expulsion. JMG
     (http://www.nhregister.com/site/News.cfm?brd=1281)       01/06/2007  
City  schools to crack down on truancy   William  Kaempffer , Register Staff 
NEW HAVEN — The city is eyeing a  crackdown on unexcused school absences as a 
crime-fighting tool.  
Calling truancy a gateway to youth violence, city education  and police 
officials are hoping that increased attention to keeping  kids in the classroom 
will lead to fewer in trouble on the  street.

"When we went back and looked at all the gun victims  and suspects (in 2006), 
there were a lot of common threads, and a  lot of them were at home and a lot 
of them were truancies, systemic  truants," said Mayor John DeStefano Jr. 
this week in announcing a  host of initiatives aimed at reducing violence between 
young people  in the city.

One of them was to revamp the school district’s  truancy operations in an 
effort to increase accountability and  better engage parents with face-to-face 
visits instead of  answering-machine messages.

According to statistics released  by the Board of Education, on any given 
day, 1,600 of the school  district’s 20,000 students, about 8 percent, are absent.

And  while absences are an obvious hindrance to classroom success,  
authorities say there also has been a long-established link between  truancy and crime, 
summed up by a California prosecutor who once  remarked she had never seen a 
gang member who wasn’t a truant first.  

According to city records, some suspects in city shootings  had scores of 
unexcused absences. One 16-year-old jailed for a 2006  murder skipped school 130 
times in the 2005-06 school year while he  was a student at the Hillhouse 
Annex.

"The number of kids  that we’re dealing with here who are harming each other 
is  relatively small, and we’ve got a great predictor in finding them,  which 
is truancy," the mayor said.

In New Haven, students are  considered truant if they have more than four 
consecutive absences  or more than 10 in a school year, according to city  
officials.

As part of the city’s new effort, police officers  from the department’s 
Family Services Division will begin evening  home visits to meet with students 
and their parents, according to  Board of Education spokeswoman Catherine  
Sullivan-DeCarlo.

They will act on referrals from individual  schools, the district’s Drop Out 
and Truancy Prevention Office and  police school resource officers.

Police officers and school  truant officers will continue to team up and 
sweep neighborhoods  daily for truants, but now the district’s 17 truancy workers 
each  will be required to make five home visits every day and get  signatures 
to show that they connected with parents and guardians.  

The city also is trying to improve information sharing with  police, 
including access to the list of students who are referred to  the truancy court docket 
and those arrested, suspended or expelled  so police can follow up with 
students and families.

New Haven  was the first municipality in the state to establish a truancy  
session of Superior Court to hear the cases of chronic truants,  
Sullivan-DeCarlo said.

Historically, truancy has been highest  in high schools, but the trend has 
extended to middle-school-age  students, prompting the city to expand its list 
of truancy target  schools from 12 to 17.

In conjunction with that, DeStefano  said, the city is committing to making 
after-school programs  available to all middle school children.

"Middle school is a  tough age, when a lot of choices are being made," he 
said.

 
____________________________________
William Kaempffer can be reached at _wkaempffer at nhregister.com_ (mailto: 
wkaempffer at nhregister.com)   or 789-5727.  

 (http://altfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/6848-44189-12202-1?mpt=[CACHEBUSTER])  
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) ©New Haven Register 2007 
 
Janice M. Gruendel, Ph.D.
Governor's Senior Advisor on Early  Childhood
Co-Chair, CT Early Childhood Education Cabinet
Senior Youth  Consultant
United Way of CT & Office for Workforce  Competitiveness
Home office: 203-481-9940
Blackberry: 203-824-4766
Mail  to: 28 Juniper Point
Branford, CT 06405

"...I hope  you never fear those mountains in the distance, Never settle for 
the path of  least resistance..And when you get a chance to sit it out or 
dance, I hope you  dance..." Lee Ann Womack. I Hope You'll Dance
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