The report, prepared by Peter Winograd, Angelo Gonzales and Jason Timm of The University of New Mexico Center for Education Policy Research, was presented to members of the Legislative Education Study Committee at the Capitol on Tuesday afternoon. “It’s a problem across the state,” Winograd said, noting that high school truancy rates in some regions of the state are “stunning.”
The report noted that 51,034 of the roughly 338,220 students — about 15 percent — were habitually truant last year. And if they aren’t in school, Winograd said, “our kids are getting in trouble.”
Though Winograd’s presentation Tuesday focused mostly on Albuquerque and Las Cruces truancy rates, the report does include the truancy rates for Santa Fe Public Schools: Some 19 percent of elementary and middle school students are habitually truant, while more than 32 percent of high school students are habitually truant.
According to Santa Fe Public Schools accountability data, the district’s average rate of habitual truancy is about 24.6 percent. Santa Fe Public Schools’ graduation rate hovers around 56.5 percent. Winograd noted that many habitually truant young people simply stop coming to school and thus do not graduate, a point echoed by Kris Meurer, executive director for Albuquerque Public Schools’ Student, Family and Community Support Department. She told the committee, “If I’ve been out seven days and find out I’m going to flunk anyway, why would I stay?”
According to state statutes governing truancy policies, the state Public Education Department reviews and approves all district and charter-school truancy policies. Schools are supposed to maintain policies that provide for early identification and intervention for truants, with schools then giving written notices to parents that includes a time and place for parents and school officials to meet to halt the problem.
But that rarely happens in Bernalillo, according to Valerie Lopez, juvenile probation supervisor for the Prevention and Intervention Unit of the state Children, Youth and Families Department in that county. She said the general public probably believes that many of these truancy cases go to court, but in her eight years of experience, she’s only seen one make it that far.
When Rep. Ray Begaye, D-Shiprock, asked Lopez if laws couldn’t be passed to fine parents or perhaps halt their food stamps if they are responsible for their children’s truant behavior, Lopez said, “The short answer is yes. The kind answer is no.” Read more
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment