Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 22, 1995 TAG: 9505220005
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
``When a child is not in school and is not sick or is unsupervised, they're at risk; the whole community is at risk.''
Harman, executive for student services and alternative programs with Roanoke City Schools, touts the work of the schools' visiting teachers, Youth Experiencing Success (YES) counselors, the alternative education program, and the teams of school and agency professionals that collaborate on students with truancy and other school problems.
But YES counselors and visiting teachers are spread thin, most of them working in two or three schools. And student support teams meet inconsistently, handling only two or three cases per meeting.
It's a question of resources, yes; but do the schools really want to admit truancy's a problem?
Drop-out data provided by the schools don't measure how many students quit school because of pregnancy or excessive absenteeism.
And a reporter's multiple requests for attendance and truancy data were rebuffed, though an official did eventually fax information listing a district-wide attendance rate of 92 percent, from 95 percent in the elementary schools to 88 percent in the high schools.
``We have no data on `truancy,''' it said.
But a document filed by the district with the Virginia Department of Education shows that 53 percent of Roanoke's high schoolers missed 11 or more days of school in 1993-94. While not all of those absences can be classified as unexcused or truancies, that figure does suggest the extent of Roanoke's absentee problem, especially when compared to the state average of 35 percent, or the Roanoke County figure of 24 percent.
In a grant proposal for Jackson Middle School's truancy-prevention project, social worker Steve Tomasik reported that 1,591 students missed 25 days of school or more in 1993-94, out of a population of 12,800 students. (The school year is 180 days.)
Tomasik said he had to talk to five school officials before he was given the figure - by an administrator who wanted to remain anonymous.
School officials declined to confirm that number for a reporter.
``That's a key piece,'' one school employee says. ``If we don't gather the data, we don't have to look at it.''
``It's the defensiveness of the bureaucracy,'' another adds. ``The police share crime information without reflecting on the police; educators need to be able to share school information without it reflecting on them.``
As Tomasik says, ``They're in a tough position politically; they're asked to do so many tasks. But we've let it slide too long in this community, and the problems are just getting worse.''
Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Judge Joseph Bounds' position is a product of those problems, having been added to the court last year because of Roanoke's soaring juvenile crime rate. Bounds says a truant is 31/2 times more prone to commit a delinquent crime while absent from school.
The city ranks No. 1 statewide in total arrrests for juveniles per capita, according to the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice.
``It's such a terrible waste of resources to throw in the most expensive [resources] in terms of money, time and personnel at the tail end of the problem, when chances of success are greatly increased when you put them at the front, where you're helping kids achieve success in school,'' Tomasik says.
``And one of the best ways to help them is to insure they're getting to school.''
Superintendent E. Wayne Harris, who declined to be interviewed for this story, has said he wants to cut the district-wide 6 percent drop-out rate in half in five years.
Juvenile Judge Philip Trompeter believes Harris' administration gives truancy and drop-out issues a higher priority than former superintendent Frank Tota's did.
Trompeter convened a task force to study truancy during the Tota administration, but it was dropped due to ``turf battles.'' He says the Jackson program has him ``feeling much more heartened.. . that at least they're beginning to focus on the issue.
``But like with any program that's intervention in nature, it's not a quick fix; you have to be in it for the long haul. And it's not just the schools or the courts, this really is a community effort.''
At the Noel C. Taylor Learning Academy, formerly called the Alternative Education Center, principal Michael McIntosh says his school cries out for expansion. The program has improved since it moved to a new building this year, upgrading certification requirements for all teachers and initiating its first-ever PTA.
But the ideal10-to-one student-teacher ratio has been stretched to 16-to-one - ``because other schools need the kids to be someplace else,'' McIntosh says.
``We might've moved out of the neighborhood, but we've still got the same customers.''
Some days as many as half of the school's 200-plus students aren't in school. The school secretary typically starts phoning the homes of absent kids at 10 a.m. and doesn't finish until 2 p.m.
``I also think if you're asking teachers to do a task no one else can do, they should be paid more,'' he says. ``Turnover's tremendous, burn-out's high. We had four fights yesterday.''
The alternative education program began in 1986 with just 25 kids, McIntosh points out, but now has eight times that number. ``I could fill William Fleming High School if I really had all the at-risk kids in the city,'' he says.
``But until we re-invest in this community and stop making political speeches, until the parents start caring more, until we give these kids jobs so they have a reason not to sell drugs and not to get pregnant, the at-risk population will continue to grow and grow and grow and grow.''
Judge Trompeter echoes McIntosh's call for resources. Programs are successful when ``kids feel that there is a person - a teacher or a program director - that's right in their court and will follow them through. It's expensive, hard, one-on-one work. But if you don't provide it, it's gonna be disastrous.''
Because it's typically the first sign of problems to come, Trompeter says, ``Truancy is the place to intervene.''
by CNB