by Contessa Abono
Of those who skip school 33% are Latinos San Francisco District Attorney Kamla Harris and San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Carlos García hold a press conference in support of the Campaign Against Truancy on Jan. 22. (photo by Stephen Morrison)
On any average Tuesday midday hour it is common place to see children hanging out on the sidewalk or down by the park. It may not cross your mind but those kids very well should be in their classrooms at that moment.
Usually no one questions kids out on the street during school hours but recently new attention to the matter is causing kids and their parents alike to take the matter more seriously.
In between the year 2006 to 2007 nearly 5,417 San Francisco Unified School District students were habitually or chronically absent from school—33 percent of those habitual and chronic truant students were Latino.
“There is an achievement gap and Latinos are not doing well here in S.F.,” said San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Carlos Garcia at a meeting for the Campaign Against Truancy on Jan. 22.
Habitual truancy means 10 or more unexplained absences per school year and chronic truancy means 20 or more absences in the 180-day school year.
This is not a minor case of High School students who are undermining their parents by skipping school; nearly 600 of the chronic truants in 2006 to 2007 were in the range of kindergarten to fourth grade.
“What is happening in the Latino community is that children are being used to watch other children,” said Garcia, “one child gets sick and the parents go to work and have the other children stay home to watch them.”
The anti-truancy programs were established a few years ago but San Francisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris, said at the meeting that although no one has been prosecuted yet for contributing to the delinquency of a minor this year she is prepared to take action, “parents need to understand that if a child does not go to school it is a crime and I am prepared to prosecute,” said Harris.
But the program is aiming to help before involving the law with the Stay In School Coalition help line and the Nurse of the Day programs. “One of the biggest change is being able to talk with the whole community. We need to reach out,” said Harris. The programs are showing some signs of success.
Last year Mission High Schools overall attendance out of the 100 students in the mediation program improved 40 percent.
The Campaign Against Truancy says they will have more data to track how the program is going by June of this year but they ask that parents take this issue seriously and do what they can to help, “We like to assume that the parents do care but they just don’t have the tools,” said Harris.
Harris said a child being abused or with disability problems is usually fi rst detected at school, which makes the school contact with a child very critical, “the child that goes without an education will be the child you’re worried about robbing you,” said Harris, “our children can’t fall.
