Almost a quarter of D.C. students were truant

Nearly one out of every four D.C. public school students was chronically truant last year.

The D.C. public school system had a 23.46 percent truancy rate during the 2003-04 school year, meaning that more than 15,000 of its about 65,000 students were absent without an excuse at least 15 days during the year, according to statistics that school officials have submitted to the federal government.

The District uses a different computation for truancy than neighboring jurisdictions; nonetheless, its truancy rate far exceeds that of Prince George’s County (1.8 percent), Fairfax County (0.6 percent) and Montgomery County (0.9 percent).

There is no national standard for how a school district must compile truancy statistics, education experts said. However, the District’s truancy rate is more than four times the national average of 3 percent to 5 percent, said Ken Seeley, president of the National Center for School Engagement, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.

D.C. secondary schools had the highest truancy rates, averaging at 29.72 percent. Among the highest: Washington Center at M.M. Washington Career High School, a vocational school in Northwest (75.83 percent); the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, a college preparatory school in Georgetown (70.39 percent); and the Luke C. Moore Academy, a high school in Northeast (68.35 percent).

Diane E. Powell, director of student intervention for D.C. public schools, said disclosing the high rates reflects an “aggressive approach” to finding which schools have the worst truancy so officials can resolve the problem.

“We’re not afraid to say this is where we are,” Miss Powell said yesterday. “Part of making a dramatic improvement is being able to say where we are. We certainly have more children attending than not attending. But we want our children back, and we want them in an educational setting that is safe and that is conducive to learning.”

She said the high figures could be the result of reporting errors, and some students being counted as truant in more than one school after transferring.

National education experts say the District’s truancy rate among elementary schools is especially troubling because young truants are more likely to drop out of high school. The average rate in D.C. elementary schools was 20.77 percent.

“Attendance and truancy are your first indicators that a child is going to drop out of school,” said Jay Smink, executive director of the National Dropout Prevention Center, a research group. “If you are really serious about improving your graduation rates or achievement levels, you had better get the child in school first.”

D.C. elementary schools with high truancy rates include Green in Southeast (49.06 percent); Noyes in Northeast (43.88 percent); and Wilkinson in Southeast (43.74 percent).

Miss Powell said the school system already has reduced truancy rates in the elementary schools by 45 percent during the first 60 days of the 2004-05 school year, compared with the same period in 2003-04.

She also said the school system has enacted a plan in which officials must contact parents after one unexcused absence.

Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, school districts are required to report truancy rates at each school rather than systemwide. The truancy rate is the percent of all students who were enrolled in a school during the school year who were labeled “chronic truants.”

Still, defining a chronic truant varies widely state to state and sometimes by school district. Maryland and Virginia compute truancy rates differently than the District.

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