Workshop on CFCC's Truancy Court to be Offered June 29
May 31, 2006
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
As the Truancy Court Program developed by the University of Baltimore School of Law's Center for Families, Children and the Courts prepares to enter its second year of operation in Baltimore city elementary and middle schools, CFCC will offer a how-to workshop for principals and other school officials on Thursday, June 29.
The one-day gathering, to be held beginning at 9 a.m. in the fifth-floor multipurpose room in UB's Student Center (21 W. Mt. Royal Ave.) will be attended by dozens of leaders from more than 30 elementary and middle schools across Baltimore. CFCC will report results as well as provide guidance on how schools can develop their own programs modeled after the CFCC approach to dealing with truancy. This approach brings together school officials, UB law students, district and circuit court judges, parents and truant children in special sessions designed to help children identify the reasons for their truancy and help them to overcome their tendency to skip school.
The media are invited to attend the workshop; R.S.V.P. required. (See attendance details below.)
In related news, the Charles Crane Family Foundation, which has funded the Truancy Court Program and allowed it to be started in a handful of city schools, has provided a $50,000 grant to continue the program for an additional year.
Barbara Babb, CFCC director and associate professor in the UB School of Law, said the workshop session and the renewed support from the Crane Foundation are indicators that Baltimore is serious about addressing truancy.
"I'm very pleased to see that our approach to mitigating truancy—a holistic strategy that involves a continuum of support and services rather than punishment and isolation—is gaining acceptance across the city," Babb said. "In two full years of planning and implementing the program, we have learned a lot about what works and what does not. In addition, we have a greater understanding of what families and children need and how children, parents and school officials respond to our toolbox of intervention methods. Our approach to tackle truancy does work, and now it makes sense to apply it to as many schools as we can. We're happy to help make that happen."
Beginning in 2005, CFCC piloted the program in a group of city schools with particularly high truancy rates, including Southeast, Canton and Highlandtown middle schools, and Elmer Henderson and Holabird elementary schools. CFCC soon discovered that the program was especially effective for "soft" truants—students with between three and 20 unexcused absences—because they retained academic, social and emotional connections to their schools. Particularly among the elementary-age participants, the Truancy Court Program caused the rate of absenteeism to drop to levels more in keeping with average rates.
(Citywide, the truancy rate hovers around 30 percent, or 30,000 out of 100,000 students. Truancy is defined by law as an unexplained absence for 20 or more days during the school year.)
Pointing to an established connection between truancy and criminal activity—a report by the Baltimore City Data Collaborative showed that the greatest cluster of arrests for violence in 1997-98 (the most recent years available for data collection) corresponded directly to those neighborhoods with the highest truancy rates—Babb said it is vital for the city to manage students’ chronic absenteeism effectively.
"When a student is truant, it affects far more than that individual’s ability to learn," she explained. "That in and of itself is a tragedy, but the problem ripples out past the classroom and the school, and into homes, neighborhoods and beyond. Every truant student has the potential to contribute to the problems of the city. Every student who goes back to school and stays there is part of the solution."
The workshop, "A Truancy Court Program for Baltimore City: Positive Results for Children, Families, Schools and Communities," will include reports by Gloria Danziger, CFCC’s senior fellow and project director for the Truancy Court Program, and Patricia Schminke, CFCC's coordinator for the program, on how the effort is working. In addition, there will be a panel discussion led by principals and school officials and another led by volunteer judges and UB law students who participated in the program. Baltimore City Public School System CEO Bonnie Copeland has been invited to join Babb to provide opening remarks. Breakout sessions on program implementation also will be offered.
The Truancy Court Program is a partnership among CFCC, the Baltimore City School System, the Office of the Mayor of Baltimore City and the Circuit Court and District Court for Baltimore City.
Members of the media who wish to attend the June 29 workshop should R.S.V.P. by June 15 to Chris Hart at 410.837.7739 or chart@ubalt.edu.
The University of Baltimore is a member of the University System of Maryland and comprises the School of Law, the Yale Gordon College of Liberal Arts and the Merrick School of Business.