THE LEDGER-STAR
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 20, 1994 TAG: 9407200579
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
Frustrated by students who skip school and get into trouble, city housing officials here are considering a controversial way to hold parents responsible: If you live in public housing and your kid is regularly truant, you could be kicked out of your apartment.
The city's nine housing commissioners are far from unanimous - some say they'll fight it vigorously. But on Tuesday, the commissioners asked their lawyer to find out whether the scheme has been used elsewhere and upheld in court.
``I think we'll quietly look into several avenues for accomplishing this,'' said Wyatt Mapp, chairman of the Newport News Redevelopment and Housing Authority board. The issue draws strong opinions on all sides. Some believe it would provide a strong incentive for parents to take an interest in their kids' education. Some think it would discriminate against the nearly 6,000 residents of the city's public housing complexes. And some see it as part of a new trend: punishing parents for their children's mistakes.
``You see this more and more. Some communities, for instance, want to penalize parents when their children disobey curfew laws,'' said Kent Willis, director of the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
``I don't know that these things are enforceable. I don't believe you can punish a parent for a kid's truancy. It's the equivalent of making it a violation of the law,'' Willis said.
The idea comes to Newport News from Omaha, Neb. There, housing officials say a similar plan has been in place for eight years.
``We've never tested it in court, but we would if we had to,'' said Julia Parker, senior vice president of the Omaha Housing Authority. ``We would take it all the way to the Supreme Court if we had to.''
The rule is not written in the tenants' leases, Parker said. It's an unwritten understanding that works well as a deterrent, she said. In Newport News, however, housing commissioners are discussing a formal, written policy.
Parker said Omaha also uses other, less severe measures to make sure public housing children get to school. If they miss their bus, for instance, housing staff will drive them there - and then talk with their parents about the problem. ``This is not a `gotcha' situation. We're just encouraging parents to make sure their children get an education,'' Parker said.
The director of the Omaha housing authority gave a speech in Newport News last year and mentioned his agency's truancy policy. Since then, officials here have been mulling something similar.
In both communities, children from low-income families are apparently more likely to have truancy problems, according to local officials.
At Dunbar-Erwin Elementary School, for instance, where 90 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, a third missed at least 21 days of school this year.
But at Dutrow Elementary School, where just 17 percent of the kids qualify for cheap lunches, only about 2 percent missed that many days.
Other city schools provide similar statistics. And it's numbers like these that make Lewis Nicholson, a city housing commissioner, think an anti-truancy clause in public housing leases is worth some consideration.
``I think that it's something we need to explore, simply because of the number of children who aren't getting to school whose parents are aware of it and don't care,'' he said.
Nicholson is concerned, however, that the scheme could serve to discriminate against poor people, since it would only apply to those parents who lived in low-income developments run by the government.
Ayisha Muhammad, a housing commissioner who also lives in public housing, opposes the plan -and thinks her neighbors would, too.
``I don't think that a family should be penalized for something the child does. It's not necessarily the parents' fault all the time,'' she said. ``That just brings about more homelessness.''
Joseph Connors, another commissioner, likes the plan but doesn't want Newport News to provide a test case in court. Before he votes for it, he'd want proof that it would be upheld.
Local judges, meanwhile, are of mixed opinion, according to Johnny Cope, the housing authority's lawyer. Some think the policy might be enforceable if parents could be proven to condone truancy; they could be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
But Cope also reported to the board that the city's civil district judge, who hears disputes between landlords and tenants, said he would ``not likely enforce'' the rule unless it applied to all leases, not just those for public housing. The judge said he was concerned the provision would discriminate against the poor.
Aundria Foster, a judge in the Newport News Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, said Tuesday that truancy is a major concern to local judges.
``We see a lot of it, though not always in cases that are strictly about missing school,'' Foster said. ``We do see a lot of truancies as part of delinquency cases - it's a symptom. And we're hoping that parents will see that children do need to be in school regularly.''
William Hawkins, director of the housing authority, is skeptical that threatening to throw people out of their homes when their kids miss school would be worth the trouble.
``I think you may have some small success from it. But they might not be large-scale because it would be hard to prove that the parents condoned the activity,'' Hawkins said.
The city is working on other methods to keep public-housing kids in school, Hawkins said, including bringing in counselors who encourage parents to take an interest in their children's schooling.
And, starting in the fall, school attendance officers will be working in several public housing complexes, making sure children get to class, said Jane Moreland, who oversees attendance for the city school system.
``They came to us,'' she said. ``We're going to work with anyone in the community that's interested in the problem of truancy.'' by CNB