Truancy In DC HS Is Shocking - Why No Urgency To Address?!!
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Anonymous
I think the Mayor, DME, and OSSE have quietly adopted this policy - keep the truant-criminals out of class so kids who want to be there have a better shot at succeeding. The correlation between the chronically truant and kids who disrupt learning for others is probably close to 1. |
Anonymous
How is that possible? You have to register for DCPS every year. And, there are no pre-filled forms. Also, if you fill out an attendance form you have to put in your phone number and email. |
Anonymous
The problem with this approach is that those truant kids are not out working and earning money, or even just goofing off. They are doing drugs and committing crimes, contributing to other problems that are getting much worse in DC. In my school district growing up, we had an "alternative school" where you got sent for a variety of reasons including chronic truancy (other reasons would be behavioral issues that disrupted the classroom, or if you had a kid, as the alternative school offered onsite childcare while students were in class as well as parenting classes). Kids who went to the alternative school had to sign attendance contracts and had weekly meetings with a teacher-advisor where they were held accountable for absences (missed classes meant additional work to make up for the missed classwork, as well as service obligations for the school). My best friend's mom was a teacher there. On the one hand, sending all the kids with the biggest issues to the same school has its challenges, especially regarding behavioral issues. But the alternative school was able to hire more staff to help deal with issues, plus I actually think there were benefits for kids who had issues like housing insecurity or coming from difficult home environments, to be in a place where most people understood those experiences. I had another friend who moved to the alternative school in high school because she got pregnant, and she graduated on time and I think being able to go to school and take her baby to a place where she could take care of her during her breaks in class and have her nearby was honestly better than what the vast majority of adults who live in poverty and have babies experience. I know DC is uncomfortable with the idea of segregating kids based on things like behavior and truancy, and I also know how schools like this can go wrong because you don't always get responsible oversight and they can quickly become juvenile halls where there's a lot of abuse and other staff issues, since these kids often don't have parents who will look out for them. But it IS possible to offer an alternative track like this and do it well, and I saw firsthand how it can improve outcomes for a population of kids where that's not always possible. The alt school also offered more trade programs than the main high school, and some of the students going through it were able to graduate with credits toward certification programs in things like HVAC repair or medical technician work. If DC was truly progressive, this is what we'd be trying to do. But DC is fake progressive with a corrupt political infrastructure, so we'll just keep doing stuff that doesn't work suggested by overpaid consultants who, huh weird coincidence, will go on to hire the politicians and government officials who hired them in the first place. I often hate this city and look forward to leaving. |
Anonymous
Do you really not understand that many people who happen to have chronically absent or truant kids may not have addresses or phone numbers that are consistent for very long? May have no regular email or internet access? Or are bad at filling out paperwork? Or don't care enough to do so? There are lots of schools in DC where a huge part of the registrar's job will be trying to get at least some paperwork on the kids who show up for school, tracking down parents to fill out forms well after school has started because they certainly didn't submit it on time when asked the prior year. Do you think that registrar is verifying that the phone numbers and emails on every single submission packet are correct? They don't have the bandwidth for that. For many of these students, they are lucky to even get to a point of signed paperwork so that the kid can be legally enrolled. So many of you are coming at this with only a UMC person's understanding of how school works. You have NO IDEA how this actually works in the parts of DC where poverty and homelessness are common and families have few resources. |
Anonymous
+1 You think that kids who attend school only 60% of the time provide accurate contact info for family members? I’ve taught in high poverty schools where maybe two guardian phone numbers out of 125 work. |
Anonymous
ummmm did you read the very long thread about people lying on enrollment forms? |
Anonymous
94% of kids at Ballou are absent. Yes to all of your suggestions! |
Anonymous
And yet there are many out of bound families from VA and MD that send their kids to DC schools without punishment. DCPS is a joke and it is unfortunate. |
Anonymous
Right, these students need some sort of vocational school and a jobs program. Saying "You don't know how to multiply but we're putting you in Algebra 1 at because of your age" doesn't help anyone. We need tracks that meet all students where they are, and for the students on the very low end this might mean doing what can be done to set them up best for gainful employment that matches their skill level. |
Anonymous
OSSE requires Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra II for high school graduation, so DCPS is limited in terms of the degree to which they can do this. They could push Algebra I to 10th grade for some students, but that doesn't solve much. |
Anonymous
If they had a separate school for the chronically truant and kids who are at high risk of dropping out or graduating with little to no skills due to social promotion, they could design a curriculum that more practically served these kids needs. A 15 yr old who is absent from school 60% of the time does not need and will not benefit from a standard Algebra class. But you could design a curriculum that taught the aspects of that class that ARE useful to that student, in a class with other students at a similar level, in a school geared toward preparing kids for a vocation as opposed to college. I have seen this work. Not for every kid, but you can help a lot of kids this way. Design a school to actually meet their needs, where the the challenges they are facing at home are understood and accepted and the school is prepared to support them, and you get get at least some of these kids on a track that ends in employment and a functional life. The problem is that DC wants to treat every single student as though they have the exact same potential in life. So they will act like a chronically truant kid at Ballou with a parent in prison and a history of drug use and criminal activity should receive the same education as some kid at JR with two lawyers for parents and a perfect attendance record and 200k sitting in a 529 with his name on it. I'm not saying the kid at JR is a better human being or "deserves" more. But from a practical standpoint, these two kids cannot have the same expectations in life and it is actually cruel to the kid at Ballou to pretend it's the case. Because then when it doesn't happen, it's like it's the kids fault. It's not. He does not have the same opportunities as the kid from JR and never will. We really struggle with the idea that life is inherently unfair and we don't actually live in a meritocracy. But if you just accept and then ask "how can we help people avoid the worst outcomes in life, how can we help even people who have been dealt a crappy hand in life some baseline level of stability and possibility in their life?" then you might actually be able to help people. |
Anonymous
Of course I understand that, but they're not able to competently handle it at JR, which was my earlier point. The admin has no idea who is at school or not at JR. Of course, that doesn't bode well for other schools. That's the point. But, I also contend that if the attendance officers aren't doing their job, then who's to say the registrars are either. Also, Pew reported that the vast majority of people have cell phones, including those with HHI under $30K. |
Anonymous
I understand the premise. But they actually legally could not. DCPS could not do this without a change to the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations, which outlines graduation requirements. The exceptions to this are competency-based requirements (proving competency as opposed to sitting for the class) or awarding a Certificate of Completion for students with certain types of IEPs instead of diplomas. Neither of those is helpful here. The regulation is really clear that vocational education happens on top of these graduation requirements, not in lieu of them. |
Anonymous
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Truancy is a leading indicator of kids moving onto felony crimes. Most of DC's recent carjackers started out as truants:
https://www.hillrag.com/2023/12/06/carjacking-is-no-big-deal/ |
Anonymous
Just 200K is the 529…? |