Truancy and crime -- Wash Post article

[Anonymous]

So here is the other issue- are we talking about excused or only unexcused? Because to only investigate unexcused is truly an equity issue. There are kids in thr system with 50-60 excused absences. Their parents (or the kids themselves) know how to play the game to never get reported for truancy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So here is the other issue- are we talking about excused or only unexcused? Because to only investigate unexcused is truly an equity issue. There are kids in thr system with 50-60 excused absences. Their parents (or the kids themselves) know how to play the game to never get reported for truancy.

Because they are travelling internationally to see Grandma in Asia? Or because they are on the West Coast to go to an high-level sports competition? Or maybe a kid had mono?

Annoying for teachers, and not 'fair,' but these kids' truancy is not setting them on a path to crime.

Also, I am highly skeptical of your 50-60 number. Very few kids are missing a full 10+ weeks of school, and then the cause is generally medical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here is the other issue- are we talking about excused or only unexcused? Because to only investigate unexcused is truly an equity issue. There are kids in thr system with 50-60 excused absences. Their parents (or the kids themselves) know how to play the game to never get reported for truancy.

Because they are travelling internationally to see Grandma in Asia? Or because they are on the West Coast to go to an high-level sports competition? Or maybe a kid had mono?

Annoying for teachers, and not 'fair,' but these kids' truancy is not setting them on a path to crime.

Also, I am highly skeptical of your 50-60 number. Very few kids are missing a full 10+ weeks of school, and then the cause is generally medical.

+1, you cannot get to that many absences by working the system. We are at an EOTP Title 1 school, and if my kid is out sick for more then 3-4 consecutive days, I will be contacted by the school. I kept her home for extended periods for Covid and for a vocal issue and we had to produce doctors notes explaining the length of absence to get these excused. And that was even with calling in daily and reaching out to the teacher for makeup work, which I'm guessing some kid just trying to work the system would not do.

The bigger issue is that there are no true consequences for chronic truancy. In DCPS, being chronically truant can result in kids being forced to do summer school. Well (1) many of these kids will just be truant from summer school, and (2) for parents of younger kids, getting a summer school spot is a reward, as it functions as childcare and they can continue to take the approach of "my kid is someone else's problem."

In my observation, the chronically truant kids generally have some combination of absentee parents (often very young parents, un or underemployed, many do not have HS diplomas), housing instability, behavioral issues and diagnosed or undiagnosed special needs, home issues such as substance abuse, fighting, malnutrition, etc. The idea that you can fix this by fining the parents or threatening to take kids away or jail the parents? It just fundamentally misunderstands the issue. That would work in middle class parent with a lot to lose. That's not who has the chronically truant kids.

[Anonymous]

These kind of articles intentionally or unintentionally seem to put the blame on schools or the system and maybe that's what it is. But when you look at three of the student examples in the article -- the really bad outcome weren't even during school time. The youngster shot breaking into cars at 4 am. The youngster killed an hour before the first bell rang at school. The girls 12-15 years old who kicked a man to death around 1 am.

How are schools supposed to help kids who don't make it to the schoolhouse doors? Or is the idea that if school were more engaging these children wouldn't be out early morning/late night involved in bad situations?

[Anonymous]

Do these kids still pass on to the next level?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These kind of articles intentionally or unintentionally seem to put the blame on schools or the system and maybe that's what it is. But when you look at three of the student examples in the article -- the really bad outcome weren't even during school time. The youngster shot breaking into cars at 4 am. The youngster killed an hour before the first bell rang at school. The girls 12-15 years old who kicked a man to death around 1 am.

How are schools supposed to help kids who don't make it to the schoolhouse doors? Or is the idea that if school were more engaging these children wouldn't be out early morning/late night involved in bad situations?

It's ridiculous to blame the schools for these cases. And doing so impels the schools to devote resources to problems they can't solve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here is the other issue- are we talking about excused or only unexcused? Because to only investigate unexcused is truly an equity issue. There are kids in thr system with 50-60 excused absences. Their parents (or the kids themselves) know how to play the game to never get reported for truancy.

Because they are travelling internationally to see Grandma in Asia? Or because they are on the West Coast to go to an high-level sports competition? Or maybe a kid had mono?

Annoying for teachers, and not 'fair,' but these kids' truancy is not setting them on a path to crime.

Also, I am highly skeptical of your 50-60 number. Very few kids are missing a full 10+ weeks of school, and then the cause is generally medical.

None of those reasons and yes kids miss 50 days of school. You clearly do not work in the system. And no, nothing happens to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here is the other issue- are we talking about excused or only unexcused? Because to only investigate unexcused is truly an equity issue. There are kids in thr system with 50-60 excused absences. Their parents (or the kids themselves) know how to play the game to never get reported for truancy.

Because they are travelling internationally to see Grandma in Asia? Or because they are on the West Coast to go to an high-level sports competition? Or maybe a kid had mono?

Annoying for teachers, and not 'fair,' but these kids' truancy is not setting them on a path to crime.

Also, I am highly skeptical of your 50-60 number. Very few kids are missing a full 10+ weeks of school, and then the cause is generally medical.

+1, you cannot get to that many absences by working the system. We are at an EOTP Title 1 school, and if my kid is out sick for more then 3-4 consecutive days, I will be contacted by the school. I kept her home for extended periods for Covid and for a vocal issue and we had to produce doctors notes explaining the length of absence to get these excused. And that was even with calling in daily and reaching out to the teacher for makeup work, which I'm guessing some kid just trying to work the system would not do.

The bigger issue is that there are no true consequences for chronic truancy. In DCPS, being chronically truant can result in kids being forced to do summer school. Well (1) many of these kids will just be truant from summer school, and (2) for parents of younger kids, getting a summer school spot is a reward, as it functions as childcare and they can continue to take the approach of "my kid is someone else's problem."

In my observation, the chronically truant kids generally have some combination of absentee parents (often very young parents, un or underemployed, many do not have HS diplomas), housing instability, behavioral issues and diagnosed or undiagnosed special needs, home issues such as substance abuse, fighting, malnutrition, etc. The idea that you can fix this by fining the parents or threatening to take kids away or jail the parents? It just fundamentally misunderstands the issue. That would work in middle class parent with a lot to lose. That's not who has the chronically truant kids.

I get that. I feel terrible for the kids born to shitty parents. But I think the only way to correct that is to disincentivize these people from having children in the first place. And that would include fines and other legal penalties for the parents - both of them regardless of marital status - for the chronically truant. These "parents" are obviously not up for the task of parenting. But if these terrible parents are paying the costs of their offspring's deviancy and crime, it will send a signal to others to get it together before they have children.

It'll never happen in DC because of race issues. But if you don't address the parenting issue, you'll never fix youth truancy and crime. That is far beyond the scope of teachers and schools. Shitty parents are the fundamental problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here is the other issue- are we talking about excused or only unexcused? Because to only investigate unexcused is truly an equity issue. There are kids in thr system with 50-60 excused absences. Their parents (or the kids themselves) know how to play the game to never get reported for truancy.

Because they are travelling internationally to see Grandma in Asia? Or because they are on the West Coast to go to an high-level sports competition? Or maybe a kid had mono?

Annoying for teachers, and not 'fair,' but these kids' truancy is not setting them on a path to crime.

Also, I am highly skeptical of your 50-60 number. Very few kids are missing a full 10+ weeks of school, and then the cause is generally medical.

None of those reasons and yes kids miss 50 days of school. You clearly do not work in the system. And no, nothing happens to them.

Then why? What are the kids doing during that time?

[Anonymous]

The problem is that we now expect people who are trained to be educators to be social workers, food providers, truant/police officers and mental-health professionals. Teachers and admins are not equipped for all that, and the city organizations that are supposed to deal with all that are passing the buck to the schools, creating the vicious cycle we're seeing now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here is the other issue- are we talking about excused or only unexcused? Because to only investigate unexcused is truly an equity issue. There are kids in thr system with 50-60 excused absences. Their parents (or the kids themselves) know how to play the game to never get reported for truancy.

Because they are travelling internationally to see Grandma in Asia? Or because they are on the West Coast to go to an high-level sports competition? Or maybe a kid had mono?

Annoying for teachers, and not 'fair,' but these kids' truancy is not setting them on a path to crime.

Also, I am highly skeptical of your 50-60 number. Very few kids are missing a full 10+ weeks of school, and then the cause is generally medical.

+1, you cannot get to that many absences by working the system. We are at an EOTP Title 1 school, and if my kid is out sick for more then 3-4 consecutive days, I will be contacted by the school. I kept her home for extended periods for Covid and for a vocal issue and we had to produce doctors notes explaining the length of absence to get these excused. And that was even with calling in daily and reaching out to the teacher for makeup work, which I'm guessing some kid just trying to work the system would not do.

The bigger issue is that there are no true consequences for chronic truancy. In DCPS, being chronically truant can result in kids being forced to do summer school. Well (1) many of these kids will just be truant from summer school, and (2) for parents of younger kids, getting a summer school spot is a reward, as it functions as childcare and they can continue to take the approach of "my kid is someone else's problem."

In my observation, the chronically truant kids generally have some combination of absentee parents (often very young parents, un or underemployed, many do not have HS diplomas), housing instability, behavioral issues and diagnosed or undiagnosed special needs, home issues such as substance abuse, fighting, malnutrition, etc. The idea that you can fix this by fining the parents or threatening to take kids away or jail the parents? It just fundamentally misunderstands the issue. That would work in middle class parent with a lot to lose. That's not who has the chronically truant kids.

I get that. I feel terrible for the kids born to shitty parents. But I think the only way to correct that is to disincentivize these people from having children in the first place. And that would include fines and other legal penalties for the parents - both of them regardless of marital status - for the chronically truant. These "parents" are obviously not up for the task of parenting. But if these terrible parents are paying the costs of their offspring's deviancy and crime, it will send a signal to others to get it together before they have children.

It'll never happen in DC because of race issues. But if you don't address the parenting issue, you'll never fix youth truancy and crime. That is far beyond the scope of teachers and schools. Shitty parents are the fundamental problem.

You are not going to disincentivize 15 yr olds from having babies by telling them that in 7 years, they could face a fine if their child is truant at school.

Also, imposing fines on people in poverty is pointless. They won't pay them. So you either have to be willing to jail them for unpaid fines (please note that having a parent in jail/prison is a major at risk factor and is likely to result in more truancy, not less, as kids are shuttled to relatives' homes or in and out of foster care) or they will just rack up fines that never get paid.

[Anonymous]

How come you can go across the river into Arlington and they don't have a high truancy problem? I wonder if it's because most of the kids in Arlington come from a two parent household. Most kids want to know that they're loved and are well taken care of. If you're being neglected it's hard to get motivated to go to school.

It's starts in the home. Let's not place the blame 100% on the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How come you can go across the river into Arlington and they don't have a high truancy problem? I wonder if it's because most of the kids in Arlington come from a two parent household. Most kids want to know that they're loved and are well taken care of. If you're being neglected it's hard to get motivated to go to school.

It's starts in the home. Let's not place the blame 100% on the schools.

Arlington's rate of single-parent households is around 20 percent, which is akin to educational hotbeds like Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Arkansas. Arlington has a 13.5 percent truancy rate (missing more than 10 percent of school days). That is not a good number. Better than DC, sure, but far from ideal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here is the other issue- are we talking about excused or only unexcused? Because to only investigate unexcused is truly an equity issue. There are kids in thr system with 50-60 excused absences. Their parents (or the kids themselves) know how to play the game to never get reported for truancy.

Because they are travelling internationally to see Grandma in Asia? Or because they are on the West Coast to go to an high-level sports competition? Or maybe a kid had mono?

Annoying for teachers, and not 'fair,' but these kids' truancy is not setting them on a path to crime.

Also, I am highly skeptical of your 50-60 number. Very few kids are missing a full 10+ weeks of school, and then the cause is generally medical.

None of those reasons and yes kids miss 50 days of school. You clearly do not work in the system. And no, nothing happens to them.

Then why? What are the kids doing during that time?

I honestly have no clue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here is the other issue- are we talking about excused or only unexcused? Because to only investigate unexcused is truly an equity issue. There are kids in thr system with 50-60 excused absences. Their parents (or the kids themselves) know how to play the game to never get reported for truancy.

Because they are travelling internationally to see Grandma in Asia? Or because they are on the West Coast to go to an high-level sports competition? Or maybe a kid had mono?

Annoying for teachers, and not 'fair,' but these kids' truancy is not setting them on a path to crime.

Also, I am highly skeptical of your 50-60 number. Very few kids are missing a full 10+ weeks of school, and then the cause is generally medical.

+1, you cannot get to that many absences by working the system. We are at an EOTP Title 1 school, and if my kid is out sick for more then 3-4 consecutive days, I will be contacted by the school. I kept her home for extended periods for Covid and for a vocal issue and we had to produce doctors notes explaining the length of absence to get these excused. And that was even with calling in daily and reaching out to the teacher for makeup work, which I'm guessing some kid just trying to work the system would not do.

The bigger issue is that there are no true consequences for chronic truancy. In DCPS, being chronically truant can result in kids being forced to do summer school. Well (1) many of these kids will just be truant from summer school, and (2) for parents of younger kids, getting a summer school spot is a reward, as it functions as childcare and they can continue to take the approach of "my kid is someone else's problem."

In my observation, the chronically truant kids generally have some combination of absentee parents (often very young parents, un or underemployed, many do not have HS diplomas), housing instability, behavioral issues and diagnosed or undiagnosed special needs, home issues such as substance abuse, fighting, malnutrition, etc. The idea that you can fix this by fining the parents or threatening to take kids away or jail the parents? It just fundamentally misunderstands the issue. That would work in middle class parent with a lot to lose. That's not who has the chronically truant kids.

I get that. I feel terrible for the kids born to shitty parents. But I think the only way to correct that is to disincentivize these people from having children in the first place. And that would include fines and other legal penalties for the parents - both of them regardless of marital status - for the chronically truant. These "parents" are obviously not up for the task of parenting. But if these terrible parents are paying the costs of their offspring's deviancy and crime, it will send a signal to others to get it together before they have children.

It'll never happen in DC because of race issues. But if you don't address the parenting issue, you'll never fix youth truancy and crime. That is far beyond the scope of teachers and schools. Shitty parents are the fundamental problem.

You are not going to disincentivize 15 yr olds from having babies by telling them that in 7 years, they could face a fine if their child is truant at school.

Also, imposing fines on people in poverty is pointless. They won't pay them. So you either have to be willing to jail them for unpaid fines (please note that having a parent in jail/prison is a major at risk factor and is likely to result in more truancy, not less, as kids are shuttled to relatives' homes or in and out of foster care) or they will just rack up fines that never get paid.

+1. Having a kid at 15 already has a lot more immediate negative consequences, and it's also not something you do because you have long time horizons for decision-making.