Citywide Effort Seen as Best Way to Curb Truancy
October 17, 2007
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
A recent gathering of city officials, school leaders, private and public agency heads, and other stakeholders in the education of Baltimore City's youth agreed that they must work together, combining resources and expertise while also leveraging their strengths, if persistent school absenteeism and its attendant problems are going to be addressed. In addition, new ways must be found to reach out to families with truant children, and a "school/community" environment must be nurtured and sustained across all of the city's disparate neighborhoods.
The all-day session, held Sept. 24 and hosted by the University of Baltimore School of Law's Center for Families, Children and the Courts, brought together a range of professionals involved in the lives of school-age children and their families—more than 60 experts representing the Baltimore City Public School System, police, courts, foundations and a number of family organizations. This unprecedented "truancy roundtable" resulted from CFCC's extensive record in combating truancy, primarily through its well-known Truancy Court Program.
With the overall goal of improving school attendance—citywide, the number of students who miss more than twenty days of school is 30 percent, or nearly 22,000 out of 73,000 students—the group pursued an agenda based on an assessment of current services, such as the Baltimore Truancy Assessment Center, as well as the potential creation of a new model for dealing with truancy.
According to Barbara Babb, CFCC director and associate professor in the UB School of Law, the attendees agreed that a collaborative, citywide approach that encourages the development of best practices and offers a continuum of intervention points stands the best chance of winning back truant students.
"It's important for Baltimore to recognize that truancy is a serious problem for all of us, and that we all have to act together to address the issue," Babb said. "Truant and tardy students are indicators of a community in trouble—not just the child, or the family, or the school. We came out of the meeting focused on how to work together to build a positive collaboration to support good school attendance—a holistic approach that involves the family, the school, the neighborhood, the city and all of the institutions that touch childrens’ lives."
After hearing from Andres A. Alonso, CEO for city schools, the group met in break-out sessions and a plenary gathering to consider the following:
- How can we manage a citywide task force of truancy, from the perspectives of ownership, staffing, and resources?
- What are the tasks and charter of this approach?
- How do we promote collaboration across agencies?
- How do we encourage inter-agency/practitioner collaboration?
- What is an effective way to share best practices?
- How do we monitor truancy rates?
- How do we conduct research and evaluations?
- What comprises a continuum of interventions?
Babb said that the school/community model may prove useful for Baltimore, which prides itself as a "city of neighborhoods."
"Instead of neighborhoods viewing their local school in isolation, we can help them understand that it is an institution that affects the quality of life within the neighborhood and within the larger community," Babb said.
In an overwhelming majority of cases, Babb added, truancy is a sign that something else is wrong in a child's life: a caregiver is not involved; a parent is suffering from substance abuse; the child is supervised by people too young or too old to take on that job; the school is not always a welcoming place; there are attractive nuisances in the community; a learning disability has gone undiagnosed. Resolving these deeper issues by working across service providers can also help alleviate the truancy problem.
Babb said the group agreed to meet again, in another session convened by CFCC at the UB Student Center. She praised the work that was accomplished at the initial session, and said she is looking forward to a comprehensive strategy.
"Our Truancy Court Program has made inroads into this issue, but it can't be applied in every case. We need to see more preventative measures, and soon," she said.
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.