The Problem of Truancy

Poor student attendance is a difficult problem to tackle. Students who are not in school are not learning or progressing. Poor attendance taints school report cards and other performance data. As the number of truant students increases, the trouble they cause also increases. Some sobering facts:

• Studies have shown that two-thirds of male juveniles arrested while truant tested positive for drug use.
• According to one confidential survey, nearly 1 in ten 15 year olds were truant at least once a week.
• During a recent sample period in Miami more than 71% of 13 to 16 year-olds prosecuted for criminal violations had been truant.
• In Minneapolis, daytime crime dropped 68% after police began citing truant students.
• In San Diego, 44% of violent juvenile crime occurs between 8:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
• In Pittsburgh, each day approximately 3,500 students or 12% of the pupil population is absent and about 70% of these absences are unexcused.
• In Philadelphia, approximately 2,500 students a day are absent without an excuse.
• In Milwaukee, on any given school day, there are approximately 4,000 unexcused absences.

A variety of organizations and agencies are working on the problem:

• The U.S. Department of Education's Safe and Drug-Free Schools Office initiated the Truancy Reduction Demonstration Program. The goal of the program is to encourage communities to develop comprehensive approaches to identifying and tracking truant youth and reducing truancy.
• The National Center for School Engagement was established based on over a decade of educational research conducted by the Colorado Foundation for Families and Children. Their work has generated many resources about school attendance, attachment, and achievement. NCSE provides trainings, technical assistance, research and evaluation to school districts, law enforcement agencies, courts as well as state and federal agencies.
• The Student Life in High Schools Project was created by the Consortium on Chicago School Research and the Chicago Public Schools. It examines truancy in Chicago's public high schools. It focuses on attendance patterns in the CPS ninth grade class of 1995-1996, comprising some 30,000 adolescents. The main findings of the analysis are the following:
  1. A broader conception of truancy is necessary: a problem of students who do not attend school and a problem of students who attend more or less regularly then cut classes.
  2. Problem attendance begins early in high school and worsens as the year progresses. Class cutting is widespread.
  3. Much of the truancy problem happens because of class cutting, and the truants are often in and around the school.
  4. Even top students frequently cut class.

In 1996 the U.S. Department of Education in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice developed a Manual to Combat Truancy. In it they noted that combating truancy is one of the first ways that a community can reach out quickly to a disaffected young person and help families that may be struggling with a rebellious teenager. Their guide seeks to offer parents, school officials, law enforcement agencies and communities a set of principles to design their own strategies to combat truancy and describes successful models of how anti-truancy initiatives are working in communities across the nation.

The communities that have had the most success in deterring truancy not only have focused on improving procedures -- such as those that accurately track student attendance -- but each also has implemented a comprehensive strategy that focuses on incentive s and sanctions for truants and their parents. Below are five primary elements of a comprehensive community and educational strategy to combat truancy.

1. Involve parents in all truancy prevention activities

   Parents play the fundamental role in the education of their children. This applies to every family regardless of the parents' station in life, their income, or their educational background. Nobody else commands greater influence in getting a young person to go to school every day and recognizing how a good education can define his or her future.

   For families and schools to work together to solve problems like truancy, there must be mutual trust and communication. Many truancy programs contain components which provide intensive monitoring, counseling and other family-strengthening services to truants and their families. Schools can help by being "family-friendly" and encouraging teachers and parents to make regular contact before problems arise. Schools may want to consider arranging convenient times and neutral settings for parent meetings, starting homework hotlines, training teachers to work with parents, hiring or appointing a parent liaison, and giving parents a voice in school decisions.

2. Ensure that students face firm sanctions for truancy

   School districts should communicate to their students that they have zero tolerance for truancy. State legislatures have found that linking truancy to such items as a student's grades or driver's license can help reduce the problem. Delaware, Connecticut, and several other states have daytime curfews during school hours that allow law enforcement officers to question youth to determine if their absence is legitimate. In a few states, including New York, a student with a certain number of unexcused absences can be failed in his or her courses. A Wisconsin judge may, among other options, order a truant to attend counseling or to attend an education program designed for him or her.

3. Create meaningful incentives for parental responsibility

   It is critical that parents of truant children assume responsibility for truant behavior. It is up to each community to determine the best way to create meaningful incentives for such parents to ensure that their children go to school. In some states, parents of truant children are asked to participate in parenting education programs. Some other states, such as Maryland and Oklahoma, have determined that parents who fail to prevent truancy can be subject to formal sanction or lose eligibility for certain public assistance. Communities can also provide positive incentives for responsible parents who ensure their child's regular school attendance. Such incentives can include increased eligibility to participate in publicly funded programs. Local officials, educators and parents, working together, can make a shared commitment to assume responsibility for reducing truancy -- and can choose the incentives that make the most sense for their community.

4. Establish ongoing truancy prevention programs in school

   Truancy can be caused by or related to such factors as student drug use, violence at or near school, association with truant friends, lack of family support for regular attendance, emotional or mental health problems, lack of a clear path to more education or work, or inability to keep pace with academic requirements. Schools should address the unique needs of each child and consider developing initiatives to combat the root causes of truancy, including tutoring programs, added security measures, drug prevention initiatives, mentorship efforts through community and religious groups, campaigns for involving parents in their children's school attendance, and referrals to social service agencies.

   Schools should also find new ways to engage their students in learning, including such hands-on options as career academies, school-to-work opportunities, and community service. They should enlist the support of local business and community leaders to determine the best way to prevent and reduce truancy. For example, business and community leaders may lend support by volunteering space to house temporary detention centers, establishing community service projects that lead to after school or weekend jobs, or developing software to track truants.

5. Involve local law enforcement in truancy reduction efforts

   In order to enforce school attendance policies, school officials should establish close linkages with local police, probation officers, and juvenile and family court officials. Police Departments report favorably on community-run temporary detention centers where they can drop off truant youth rather than bring them to local police stations for time-consuming processing. When part of a comprehensive anti-truancy initiative, police sweeps of neighborhoods in which truant youth are often found can prove dramatically effective.

School districts have implemented many of these ideas. We have a summary of some of them: Model Truancy Reduction Programs