District rewrites truancy playbook
BROOKSVILLE –
School officials are seeking help from law enforcement and the community to reduce the number of students skipping school in light of truancy cases more than doubling in Hernando County in four years.
The Student Services Department investigated 98 truancy cases during the last school year. That’s 51 more cases, or a 104 percent increase, than during the 2006-07 school year, which is as far back as numbers were recorded.
Jim Knight, director of student services, said following the 2006-07 school year, his office added another social worker to deal with more cases.
Along with safety concerns for the student, Knight said schools could lose state money if students are absent through parts of October or February when enrollment is recorded. Others might miss FCAT or other testing that could bring schools grades down.
Superintendent Bryan Blavatt added that most importantly, if students aren’t in school, they can’t be educated.
“If a student is in the classroom and they fail, that’s our responsibility,” Blavatt said. “But the trick is getting them there. And it’s not just a school problem; it’s a community problem because if they’re not at school, you have to wonder where the child actually is.”
Truancy reveals layers of problems
Although truancy alone is a concern, Knight said many times it’s a symptom of other problems at home.
Sometimes it’s a matter of middle or high school students deciding to skip while their parents are at work. In other cases family problems, such as homelessness, parental drug use, abuse or other circumstances, are to blame.
Knight added that school problems, such as bullying, are also a factor as to why students stop going.
“You just never know what situation you might come across,” Knight said. “Sometimes you find that the family is homeless. Other times parents tell us they can’t get their 14-year-old to go to school and ask us to help.”
This year, the district is changing its student absentee program to expand efforts to intervene earlier in truancy cases and avoid taking students and parents to truancy court. They are modeling the policy and procedural manual after Citrus County.
In the past, Knight said employees with state agencies would sometimes take part in students’ cases – causing a 60- to 90-day delay for Hernando County social workers, who waited for state employees to finish evaluations.
Now, he said local employees will try to intervene before students routinely miss school – potentially eliminating the problem before it gets out of control.
“It’s amazing how fast things can get out of control,” Knight said. “And waiting 60 to 90 days – students can miss a lot more school days in between that time.”
Regina Allegretta, director of student services for Citrus County School District, credits her district’s process with reducing overall absences by roughly 10 percent from 2008-09 school year to 2009-10 – from 651 absences to 573.
In Citrus, she said social workers don’t wait to intervene when a student is “habitually truant,” which by law is defined when a student misses five days of school in a month, or 15 unexcused absences in a semester.
Instead, employees become involved typically after a student misses three days.
“It’s the same with academics. If a student receives an F you don’t wait until they receive three F’s before stepping in,” Allegretta said. “You don’t want to wait for a student to fall into a pattern of absences. You want to get to them early so you can set them on the right path to be successful.”
School social workers then notify parents and work with them to determine what needs to be done to remedy the behavior.
The process in action
In all cases, Knight said school and social workers try to work with parents and students to resolve the problem. If parents refuse to cooperate, they can be arrested and face criminal prosecution.
If teens 16 years old or older refuse to work with school social workers or employees from a Department of Children and Families approved state agency, they can also be sent before a juvenile court judge and ordered to be supervised by a social worker or removed from the home and sent to a runaway shelter for up to 30 days.
A juvenile court judge can then review the case again and continue sending the teen to the runaway shelter.
Students who are truant also can’t receive a learner’s permit or driver’s license. If they already have one, it becomes suspended until the teen is no longer truant, Knight said.
Meanwhile, Blavatt said it would take a few months to implement all aspects of the new truant program, which will involve representatives from law enforcement, the Hernando County Health Department, the State Attorney’s Office and the Department of Children and Families.
“Basically, it’s going to involve a lot of meetings and discussions in the next few weeks,” Blavatt said. “But in the end, we have to get these kids in the classroom and figure out what it’s going to take for them to want to be there, because at some point, we can’t force kids to be there.”
Reporter Jeff Schmucker can be reached at 352-544-5271 or [email protected].
