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COVER: Right

Opinion: Truancy and Dollars

Published on Friday, October 4, 2013 | 5:35 pm
 

I’ve never understood this notion of state and federal dollars being jeopardized when public schools face challenges in performance. The California Attorney General’s recent report on the statewide truancy crisis raised this issue yet again. According to the report, 25% of California kids are truant (absent or tardy half-an-hour or more without an excuse at least three times during the school year) every year. Because education money is linked to average daily attendance (ADA), school districts up and down the state lost $1.4 billion in the 2010-2011 school year.

Truancy is a critical problem. It is linked to scholastic achievement, drop out rates, and crime. But I’m at a loss to understand how reducing school funding (which is already stretched thin) will improve the situation.

Eric Sahakian, Pasadena’s director of child welfare, attendance and safety traced the Pasadena’s 49% rise in truancy to financial pressures put on families by the recession. Sahakian also cited “dramatic budget cuts” in staff tasked with reducing truancy. Withholding state money from local schools does nothing to address these complicated matters. Indeed, if budget cuts contribute to the problem, then responding with funding reductions seems counterintuitive.

The Attorney General’s truancy report applauds the success of initiatives like PUSD’s Student Recovery Day, when volunteers visited the homes of truant students. Such programs enable school officials to understand the challenges faced by the struggling families Mr. Sahakian mentioned. Understanding those challenges could be invaluable in identifying the factors that make it difficult for some students to be in class, on time, every day.

Thanks for listening. I’m Cameron Turner and that’s my two cents.

For more information, visit http://oag.ca.gov/truancy

 

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