Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 13, 1995 TAG: 9508110089
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This is one of the worst school-attendance records in Virginia; the problem begs for more attention. To his credit, Superintendent Wayne Harris seems serious about making sure it gets more attention.
``You will be held accountable,'' he has told principals, to meet a specific goal: reducing the number of students who miss 10 or more days of school by at least 10 percent per year for the next three years. Excellent.
Improving attendance is closely linked to other assignments Harris has handed principals: to see that student test scores improve and the dropout rate declines. Students can't do well academically if they routinely skip class, and academic failure is a prime reason why kids drop out.
It is important to distinguish between absenteeism and truancy: Many absences are legitimate. Both the absentee and truancy rates, however, are problems.
The absentee rate rises in the higher grades: Nearly 10 percent of the city's high-school students last year missed 50 or more school days. Many of these are de facto dropouts even if they're officially still enrolled. But patterns of truancy or too-frequent excused absences - sometimes, with parents helping cook up the excuses - usually develop when children are much younger. Recognizing this, Harris is targeting two elementary schools, Fallon Park and Hurt Park, for a special early-intervention effort this fall.
That effort will be modeled after a bold and effective experiment launched two years ago at Stonewall Jackson Middle School. The Fallon Park-Hurt Park initiatives will be overseen by Jackson's principal, Charles Kennedy, tapped by the superintendent to tackle school absenteeism citywide next year while Jackson is closed for construction and renovation.
The Jackson pilot is getting statewide attention from a legislative panel looking at truancy as a factor in juvenile delinquency. The program involved not only faculty, but also Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Joseph Bounds and a full complement of juvenile and social workers. Case by case, they zeroed in on 35 hard-core truants with individualized counseling for them and their parents. This was backed by the clout of potential sentencing of wayward students to a juvenile-detention facility, and potential legal action against uncooperative parents.
A comprehensive team approach was the meat of the experiment, but the heart of it was the personal commitment of Kennedy and Bounds. For the principal, midafternoon wasn't too late to go to a truant's home and deliver him or her to school for the last half-hour of classes. For the judge, visiting the school became part of the job, going classroom to classroom to give a pat on the back to truants he'd ordered back to school and to cast ``don't even think about skipping'' glances at others.
Perhaps so intensive an effort cannot be duplicated everywhere. Almost certainly, details will vary with circumstances. But the "tough love" approach exemplified by the Jackson effort - getting across the notion that the community has expectations for all children, because all children are valued - is one key in addressing the interrelated problems of absenteeism and academic failure.
by CNB