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Taming Truancy ; School District Makes Some Changes to Its Program in Effort to Get Focus Back on Students

Posted on: Saturday, 24 December 2005, 18:00 CST

By GABRIELA C. GUZMAN Journal Staff Writer

Last May, when school was ending for the year, it was unclear what would happen to the Santa Fe Public Schools' truancy program.

At the time, district officials said that, with federal and state grant funds running out, there was no money for the program for the current school year.

But, over the summer, the district cobbled together a budget to pay for staff, and with other state and federal funds the truancy program made a resurgence this fall.

Yet the program underwent some alterations.

Last year, the anti-truancy effort made headlines when four parents went before a magistrate judge in the early morning hours -- one mother was still wearing her pajamas -- for their children's habitual absences from school. All were sentenced to probation.

So far this school year, no Santa Fe parents have been arrested under the state's compulsory school attendance law.

Those involved in the anti-truancy effort say the program last year was effective in raising awareness about truancy problems, but question whether the focus of the effort worked best in getting children on track.

Connecting student success with their studies is what was missing with last year's program, says Tita Gervers, director of the district's student wellness department, which includes truancy.

The focus was getting students to school, but connecting them with their classes or teachers was not given the same amount of attention, she says.

Also, last year's truancy specialists were not perceived as being part of school staff and were too isolated to be effective.

"We wanted to involve more people," Gervers says.

Students' reasons

Hector Cavazos, athletic director at Capital High School, is manager of Capital's truancy program. He's also an assistant principal there.

Reasons for not coming to school are as varied and diverse as the high school's student body, Cavazos says. Excuses range from not having a ride to school to a student not getting along with a teacher to bullying, say district officials.

The responsibility of Cavazos and Capital's truancy prevention specialist is to determine what is preventing the teenager from attending school on a regular basis.

"We are trying to get at the bottom of it," he said.

Before that can happen, Capital and other schools around the district must have an accurate count of student absenteeism. Obtaining clean data on student truancy is harder than imagined, Gervers said.

A longer-than-expected delay in rolling out district-issued computers to schools and teachers this fall prevented full implementation of the truancy program, she said.

The computers are important because records on the number of absences a student accumulates must be correct, since a parent can face legal action if found to be negligent in getting a child to school under the compulsory school attendance law. If the attendance data is incorrect or suspect, district attorney's offices cannot build a strong case against the parents.

Notification

Parents are notified of their children's excessive absences with the receipt of notices after a student's third, fifth and 10th absences via certified mail, as the law requires.

Until recently, the staff at Santa Fe High School was unable to access the district's attendance software. Also, some teachers still have not developed the routine of turning in their attendance forms, Gervers said.

She lauds Capital for its truancy program, but the success there is also dependent on teachers taking attendance correctly and sending students to the attendance office who were absent the day before. "It seems easy enough," Gervers said about taking attendance.

During a recent morning at Capital, students milled in and out of the attendance office handing Jennifer Garcia, the office secretary, notes with parents' signatures. But to be doubly sure the letter is not a forgery, Garcia hands the teen the phone and has the student call a parent.

While none of last year's four truancy specialists for high schools or middle schools returned this year, the hardships and obstacles students face to be successful in school remain the same.

Excused absences

Already a number of students have accumulated numerous absences, but their parents can write a letter excusing them.

A student could be out because of an extended illness, or for more trivial things, such as a vacation, and the district has no authority to say if it is a valid reason to be out of school or not.

"There are no perimeters. As long as we get permission from a parent, it was an excused absence," Cavazos said.

During a recent meeting of the Santa Fe Regional Juvenile Justice Board, the entity that oversees the district's truancy program, Gervers told the members that excused absences are abnormally high.

Gervers said she hopes to eventually transform the program to be more preventative in nature.

Members of the juvenile justice board say they want to see the program intervene in student absenteeism.

Tommy Rodriguez, with juvenile probation, proposed the idea of identifying at-risk children by the first grade and having a program where an individual, in a mentoring role, carries them through high school graduation.

"That's the ideal model," says District Judge Barbara Vigil to his brainstorm.

Rodriguez added that, trying to get students interested in school even in the sixth grade, when they start ditching class, and may already be a few grade levels behind, is really too late.

Source: Albuquerque Journal

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