Arlington County’s and Alexandria’s public school systems are using aggressive and innovative programs to keep truancy in check.
Only four of Arlington’s 18,000 students — or 0.02 percent — were truant during the 2002-2003 school year. In Alexandria, 186 — or 1.7 percent — of 10,762 students were truant last school year.
To be designated a truant in Virginia schools, a student must have at least seven unexcused absences during a marking period.
“Our goal is to ensure that every Arlington public school student has access to a quality instructional program. In order to receive it, students must be in school,” says Alvin Crawley, assistant superintendent of student services.
“We are aggressively dealing with students who are missing school,” says Lawrence E. Jointer, director of pupil services for Alexandria public schools.
Computerized student-tracking systems, monthly meetings with school representatives, and outreach to police, human-services groups and the courts help both school districts keep students in school.
In 2002, Arlington schools implemented Pentamation, a $597,000 computer database that includes student attendance data, class schedules and grades. Arlington schools spend $121,000 a year to operate the system, which generates a letter to parents whenever their child misses even a single class. It also notifies them after a child has amassed five unexcused absences.
Pentamation works in tandem with Attendance Dialer — a computer program that automatically telephones parents at home, at work or on their cellular phones when their children have missed school. The automated phone alert is used at Arlington’s three high schools and one middle school.
“The two systems work together … . I think what we have in place now is very effective,” Mr. Crawley says.
Truants must attend a counseling session with an attendance specialist. In cases of habitual absences, an interagency committee of representatives from the Department of Human Services, the juvenile-court system and the school “meets with the parents and the child … to address the issues,” he says.
A total of 27 students attended an interagency committee meeting in the 2001-2002 school year, Mr. Crawley says, and eight truancy cases went to the courts. Last school year, 18 cases went before the interagency committee and four went to court.
“While we are confident in our effort to address truancy, [we] continue to look for ways to provide more support and services to students and families,” Mr. Crawley says.
One way is a mentoring program started this year at Wakefield High for students with attendance problems who are paired with faculty members, says Madeline LaSalle, the school’s attendance specialist.
“We have had a great response from teachers who want to become mentors, and we are hoping that by the time attendance-support groups end in April, each student will have a mentor to help them through June,” she says.
In Alexandria, students with “attendance issues, behavior issues or academic concerns” are eligible for the Secondary Training & Education Program (STEP) at T.C. Williams High School on King Street, Mr. Jointer says.
But STEP is mainly for students with habitual absences — “the ones who are most likely to try and stop coming to school,” he says.
Guidance counselors, principals or parents can refer students to STEP, which gives them one-on-one attention and renewed confidence in studies with the aim of keeping them in the classroom. Students in the program can take advanced courses at T.C. Williams.
“We’ve found the STEP program to be most effective,” Mr. Jointer says. “Normally, once students start being successful, it’s hard to get them back into their [assigned] schools.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.