D.C. school board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz yesterday said a lack of manpower has limited the public school system’s ability to handle rampant truancy among students.
“The school system does not have the in-house wherewithal to combat truancy. I mean, we don’t have the manpower to send people out on the streets and say, ’Come to school,’” Mrs. Cafritz said. “I’m not going to stand here and say we’re going to do a better job tracking them down. It’s baloney. We do call parents when their kids are missing, but that’s it.”
The Washington Times reported Sunday that truancy is rampant in the District, with several high schools reporting 20 percent or more of their students were truant.
The Times reported that 5,790 of the 86,449 students in D.C. schools, or 6.7 percent, were truant during the 2001-02 school year, the only year for which complete data were available. At that time, 1,836 of the District’s 12,022 high school students, or 15.3 percent, were truant. Suburban jurisdictions reported much lower truancy rates.
Mrs. Cafritz yesterday said parents, particularly those in impoverished households, need to do a better job of getting their children to school and the police department could do more to pick up truant schoolchildren to prevent them from becoming involved in crime or drugs.
Meanwhile, the D.C. Council yesterday narrowly defeated emergency legislation aimed at curbing truancy and delinquency by requiring police to notify the superintendent when a student is charged with serious offenses on or off school grounds.
The legislation also would have allowed principals to remove students from school if they commit crimes and pose “a threat to self or others in the school population.”
Those students would have been placed in an alternative-education program, but D.C. Council member Kevin P. Chavous said those facilities do not yet exist and schools could be held responsible if a student wasn’t removed and committed a crime in the school.
Mr. Chavous, Ward 7 Democrat and chairman of the Education, Libraries and Recreation Committee, said he would move similar legislation after amending it to make it “more practical.”
The school board also plans to address the school system’s poor record keeping on truants with acting Chief Academic Officer Robert Rice, who will replace Elfreda Massie as interim superintendent this month.
“We have to look into solving the problem. We will be talking with Dr. Rice on this issue about how we keep better truancy records,” said school board member William Lockridge.
Mr. Lockridge said former Superintendent Paul L. Vance, who resigned in November, made an effort to track truancy and maintain records by opening a Truancy Office last year.
“It is the responsibility of the Truancy Office to maintain records on truant students and work with the police,” Mr. Lockridge said.
City school officials, such as student services director Diane Powell, did not know how many students have been truant over the past few years, The Times reported on Sunday. Complete data were available only for the 2001-2002 school year.
Mrs. Cafritz said truancy records are tied to attendance and those records should be available.
“The school system has records on absenteeism, which should be readily available to you,” she said.
The school system’s shoddy record keeping did not surprise council member Adrian M. Fenty, Ward 4 Democrat.
“It’s an awful burden on public safety. Our schools have to do a better job in terms of keeping track [of students]. This is elementary,” Mr. Fenty said.
Council member Jim Graham, Ward 1 Democrat, said he was “shocked” to learn that D.C. students are considered truant after 10 consecutive unexcused absences. “Isn’t anyone wondering? I think [a student] should be considered truant after three days,” he said.
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