A New Approach To Tackling Truancy

Keeping Kids in School Is Our Best Crime Prevention Strategy

Seventy-five percent of all state prison inmates and 59% of federal inmates are high-school dropouts.  Dropouts must compete for the lowest-paying jobs, and can expect to earn $260,000 less over a lifetime of work than high-school graduates.  It is in our interest, and in the best interest of the child, to keep school in the picture for every student in the county.

These statistics are sobering, and they explain why the PAO, in partnership with State Supreme Court Justice Bobbe Bridge's (ret.) and the Center for Children and Youth Justice (CCYJ), is taking a new approach to tackling this tough problem and finding new ways to convince kids to stay in school.

By law, students are truant if they miss more than seven days of school in a month or ten days in a semester.

School district truancy officers will file a petition in Juvenile Court to start the process, but under the new approach to truancy enforcement, kids will not be required to come to court.  Instead, they will get a letter from the PAO telling them that to avoid legal trouble that they need to attend a truancy workshop in their neighborhood.

"For many of these kids, and their parents, the truancy letter they get from my office will be a wake-up call," said Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg.  "I don't want to haul them into Juvenile Court, but I do want to get their attention, and begin to work with these kids to get them re-engaged in school before it's too late."

The PAO and CCYJ are working together to divert kids from court and into community and school-based truancy workshops, where parents, students, and school representatives will have an opportunity to sit down together to identify and address the underlying issues that are contributing to the child's truant behavior.  Trained volunteer facilitators and community service providers will be present at the workshops so that the students and parents know that there is help available to address a variety of concerns, such as drug and alcohol treatment, tutoring, and mental health treatment.  The workshops are designed to keep kids out of court, connect them to services, and get them back in school.

Truancy is a red flag for parents, caring school representatives, and the criminal justice system.  The more we can do to keep kids in school, the greater the benefits are to our entire community.

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