The influence over truants

Mark Gleason

We asked our parent panelists: District attorney officials were the

target of parent anger this week because of what the parents deemed

heavy-handed tactics in dealing with truant students. What are your

thoughts on the district attorney’s involvement in the truancy

problem in which parents were told they and their children could face

jail time?

There’s a difference between aggressive and heavy-handed. The way

this particular situation was handled was definitely heavy-handed,

but the underlying idea of an aggressive approach to truancy is

sound.

Kids need to be in school. Parents own most of the responsibility

for making sure they go to school and stay there. Ideally, sound

values instilled at an early age will help kids understand and

appreciate school.

Involved teachers and caring administrators should be able to

guide students to responsibility. Campuses need to provide a

welcoming and safe environment.

Whether one lives in that perfect world or not, one thing will

never change: many kids will skip school. They’ll walk in one door

and out the other. They know how the waves are breaking or how nice

it is at the beach.

They’re tricky little buggers and sometime the only way to get

their attention is with aggressive handling. However, that doesn’t

mean rounding up all the usual suspects in a room with the district

attorney and sheriff and bludgeoning them with a PowerPoint

presentation showing truancy as the onramp to the road to hell.

A PowerPoint full of statistics does sound pretty hellish in its

own right. Perhaps that’s part of the solution. Maybe if they just

told all the truants that they would have to watch the PowerPoint

over and over again in a darkened detention room they would see their

folly and repent.

The big-blitz approach probably seemed like a good way to cut a

wider swath and generate attention. The attention part sure worked,

but on its own the attention won’t make a dent. Truancy really does

need to be handled on an individual basis.

There are common threads, but each kid’s situation is different.

School administrators need to get serious with both parents and kids

earlier. If that doesn’t work, they need to then bring these other

agencies into play and keep the pressure on.

* MARK GLEASON is a Costa Mesa resident and parent.

If the school district and district attorney can jointly deal with

chronic truants and their parents, that is a good thing. But because

this is a new program, the district could have gone the extra mile

and given the parents advance warning and allowed them the

opportunity to respond to the unexcused absences. Parents are

rightfully angered by the district’s use of intimidation to get their

attention.

This situation brings out the tension that exists between parents’

rights and state enforcement of compulsory attendance laws.

The state has a vested interest in children attending school, but

parents still have discretion over their children’s lives. If a

parent believes there is a good reason their child should not attend

school, then that is the parent’s prerogative. But what a parent

thinks is a good reason may not fit with the school’s definition of

excuses, and that creates a conflict. In some cases, there may be

logical explanations for the absences. However, if a student is

ditching behind the parent’s back, then the school should intervene.

The district does have a way to deal with habitual truants and

their parents, called the Student Attendance Review Board, made up of

administrators and teachers who meet with parents and truants. It is

not clear if all the parents who attended last week’s meeting had

been through the review board process. The district attorney’s

program would be a logical next step after the review board.

It’s too late to undo the damage. The heart of the matter is about

whether we are shifting into a more authoritarian role, where the

state is becoming more of a parent and taking over parental

responsibilities. The state bureaucracy isn’t set up to be

compassionate or merciful to parents.

For this reason, many are turning to home schooling where state

interference is minimal and parents maintain authority over their

children. This issue should remind those in our schools to learn and

follow the state’s rules, ask questions and speak out when they feel

the state is overstepping its authority.

The parents last week were right to be offended.

* WENDY LEECE is a Costa Mesa parent, former school board member

and member of the city’s parks and recreation commission.