Page 7 - Empowering Teens - Drug Free - 2014

2014
DRUG FREE 7

Truancy reduction efforts keep more kids in school – continued

when a student misses too many days in a month’s peer pressure.

time, the parents get an initial warning letter and “The kids themselves
the student is given a chance to improve attendance. decided when they wrote
“If they fail, they get a second warning letter and these articles that it was a

then get another chance to improve,” Mori said. “If in good thing,” he said.
the third 30-day level they don’t show improvement,
they then have to appear in front of truancy court.”
Kids sometimes miss
The system seems to have worked well at Gresham, school because of trauma
Mori said, according to numbers from last year, the K
irst year the initiative was in place.
at home
AR
CL
“We sent out 266 irst warning letters, and of those, Sometimes students miss M
115 went on to receive a second warning letter,” he JI
explained. “From that, we had 37 that ultimately school because of some :
traumatic situation in their TO
could have been cited, but we chose not to cite them, home life, Mori said, but
HO
and of those 37 that qualiied to be cited, we only P
went through with nine who
OK
O
were actually cited to appear TL
in truancy court, because of “WE KNOW WHEN KIDS ARE IN SCHOOL OU
the law.”
THEY ARE LESS LIKELY TO ENGAGE IN
Campbell, the inter-governmental liaison, said she HIGH-RISK BEHAVIOR.” — CATHY
believes the truancy reduction initiative has been SHERRICK, FORMER MANAGER FOR THE
Letters to parents lead to conversations initiated by the GUARANTEED ATTENDANCE PROGRAM
conversations
letters can help the school very successful in East County.
recommend resources.
“Overall last year (all area schools) sent out 1,546
irst letter to let parents know that their kids are at
But the school does more than
“We will be able to see families in
send out letters, Mori said.
crisis and kids suffering in traumatic situations and the truancy marker,” she said. “Out of that, 1,053
“We have three assistant principals and three or these are kids where we can being in supports and students resolved their attendance issues and
returned to school, and we think in just that irst
four counselors, and the letters force conversations nonproits and help those kids be successful,” he
to occur,” he said. “As far as our outlook, for us the said.
step, that’s a remarkable return on the investment.”
main point of this program is to start conversations Besides school administrators and counselors, school Of all those letters that went out, only 23 parents
ended up in the truancy court in East County, she
going, oftentimes serendipitously.”
resource police oficers are very supportive and a big
Kids miss school for “a whole host of reasons,” part of the truancy prevention initiative, Mori said. said.
according to Mori.
“They’re the ones who understand it really isn’t a “The true success would be never having to send the
“We know if we can get them in school, we can get juvenile crime issue,” he

them to graduate. And if we can keep them off drugs, said. “They understand SPRINGDALE JOB CORPS
we can get them to graduate,” he said. “The cause of what kids are doing
truancy is, a lot of times, the kid’s not invested in when not in school.”

school, not being engaged in school in a meaningful Mori said he can’t say for A Safe & Healthy
way and a lot of times it can be boredom.”
sure there’s a direct
But students need to know there are boundaries to correlation between
Environment
their behavior, he said, and there was a void when lower drug use and lower
the GGAPP program that Sherrick headed up was truancy rates, that if
defunded at the end of the 2012 school year. But another anonymous For Continuing

Mori said he had renewed hope when students student survey showed a Your Education
began writing about the Attendance Initiative in the reduction in drug use
school’s student newspaper.
along with lower truancy,

“The kids were writing that this was a good thing, he “wouldn’t see a reason
that (other) kids needed to know that it wasn’t going not to do it,” at least Offering
to be tolerated,” he said, helping to create peer-to-
anecdotally.
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