May 2, 2011
This meeting included presentations by:
Kari Thierer, National Director of School and Network Support for Big Picture Learning
Stan Ricketts, Director, Camp to Community Transition Program, Probation Department
The Big Picture approach is being used in over 60 schools in 15 states and in a growing number of countries around the world. This program can be adapted to fit specific school districts and communities and can be put into any kind of school. Big Picture Learning starts by asking a student “where are your gaps” and “what are your strengths” and begins from there, even when the gap is social/emotional rather than academic. In this way, Big Picture “helps kids know themselves” and develop their own school curriculum. It is not workbook or chapter-focused, but based on what a youth needs to know and what that youth already knows. Big Picture focuses heavily on probation youth, and believes in educating one youth at a time and getting them out into the real world twice weekly through internships tied into each student’s academic program. Transition planning is key, especially in and out of camps.
Teachers are “advisors” and generalists who guide the same group of students (usually 15 to 18 per group) throughout their high school years. As a result, youth are part of a community and bring their whole selves to their group meetings. Each student also has a mentor outside of school and these mentors, as well as parents, are actively engaged as resources to the Big Picture Learning community. In short, “Big Picture takes care of truancy because, at their sites, kids want to go to school.”
Kari suggested that judicial officers take the time to dig deeper into why a student is truant and proposed some key questions that they should ask youth who are truant. She also proposed getting the youth, parent, teacher and judicial officer, as well as key players in the youth’s life (including the youth’s ally or “someone who cares”), together in a non-threatening, youth-centered conference. Together, this group works with the youth to figure out a plan, as is being done, to various degrees, in SSTs, the Gloria Molina FYEP, with school-based DPOs, etc. and youth should be steered to compatible, supportive schools.
Probation currently has three initiatives addressing school truancy: (1) working with bus/MTA/Metro companies to align transportation pick-up times with school start times, and working with safety collaboratives to establish Safe School Zones designed to ensure safe passages to and from school. Pick-up and school start times have been successfully aligned and more safety collaboratives are now in place because, where they exist, crime has been reduced by 17%; (2) establishing increased penalties for crimes committed within 1000 feet of a school or within 500 feet of a bus stop; and (3) working with neighborhood vendors whose businesses are making youth tardy. There is often a 4 to 5 week delay in enrolling youth exiting camps into community-based schools, prompting the Department to focus more intensely on camp to community transitions. A pilot has been created involving 9 school districts, in which receiving districts are brought to the planning table 60 days before a camp youth is to be discharged.
June 6, 2011
This meeting focused on the efforts of the juvenile court and included presentations by:
Jack Furay, Supervising Referee, Informal Juvenile and Traffic Court (IJTC)
Donna Groman, Supervising Judge, Delinquency Court
Margaret Henry, Supervising Judge, Dependency Court
Sherri Sobel, Referee, Dependency Court and Co-Chair, Juvenile Court Education Committee
And several other judges and referees from these three courts
Furay reported that: (1) in his years with the court, he has never seen a youth return to court with his/her school attendance record; (2) 70% of youth who return have not complied with the conditions set; and (3) 50% prefer to pay a fine (which must be paid before they can obtain a CDL) than perform community service or go to a program. He would very much like there to be a school representative in each of his courts or at least a designated school contact for the court to confer with about their truant students. One of the best options would be to have arrangements with schools for these youth to attend Saturday schools.
Groman reported that 25 of the approximately 30–40 youth seen every day at the Kenyon Juvenile Justice Center have poor school attendance. She tries to avoid sending truant youth to Juvenile Hall, as that results in their missing even more school. Instead, she looks at each youth’s situation to see what can be done to help. Groman frequently sends them to Public Counsel’s Education Clinic, which is conveniently located across the street from the court. There, clinic staff look at the youth’s entire school history (including pre-school) to try to determine the core problem, and then talk with parents about solutions. In Groman’s opinion, parent involvement is the most important factor to changing the youth’s situation. She suggests parents have their youth obtain a daily sign-in check for every class their youth takes, and then impose consequences when they are truant or miss a class. Stability is the key and Groman refers to a variety of community programs to keep the youth at home, such as tutoring, substance abuse prevention, mentoring, wraparound, etc. She also uses community detention programs as a low level sanction.
Henry explained that the Dependency Court works a little differently, as it doesn’t really have parents to deal with. It relies on 6-month court reports for school attendance information and expects children’s social workers to find out why their caseload youth are not attending school. Drugs are a big issue, and a lot of youth are afraid to go to a new school as the curriculum may be different or they fear being bullied or beat up, etc. Independent study is an option when youth aren’t able to cope with school.
Sherri Sobel asks for 30-day reports on education for all of her cases. Her biggest concern is with AWOL youth who are missing school for periods of time. She sees this as a community issue, not a children’s issue and, therefore, the support of adults is needed to resolve this problem. Also, there is a “big disconnect” between parents’ expectations (almost all want their kids to go to college) and their behavior (not getting their kids up for school every day, for example) that must be addressed.
Other judicial officers then talked about the importance of determining the reason(s) for each youth’s truancy and described what variables contribute to their sentencing decisions.
August 9, 2011
This meeting focused on comprehensive, collaborative approaches to improving school attendance and included presentations by:
Hedy Chang, Director, Attendance Works
Sue Fothergill, Director, Baltimore Student Attendance Initiative
Attendance Works is a national and state level initiative that promotes the important role of school attendance in achieving academic success and focuses, in particular, on reducing chronic absence (missing 10% or more of school in an academic year, whether absences are excused or not). Chang pointed out that students who are chronically absent in Kindergarten and 1st grade are much less likely to read proficiently in 3rd grade and this is especially true for low-income children. In the Oakland Unified School District, over 14% of students (nearly 1 out of 7) are chronically absent. Although data is needed to identify programmatic solutions, it is not being used effectively. Recording attendance is done routinely and, in most districts, it is done electronically, but chronic absence is not typically calculated or monitored, even though that data exists. Further, California is one of only 5 states that does not even have attendance in its longitudinal student database. Hedy identified the major characteristics of successful attendance initiatives and gave examples of some of these efforts in Baltimore, Grand Rapids, and New York City. She then listed some of the things that school districts can provide to improve attendance and what, specifically, the TTF could target or promote.
For the first year of the Baltimore Student Attendance Initiative, the key components of Baltimore’s attendance strategy included examining the data, spreading the word through forums, getting leaders on board and identifying partners. A broad-based work group of over 100 representatives was established, which developed a set of recommendations to dramatically increase student attendance. These recommendations included: instituting a text messaging transportation campaign to gather data about student experiences getting to and from school; increasing the use of and institutionalizing best practices through a change in direction from a student-focused lens to a school-focused lens; leveraging the impact of after-school and community schools on attendance; making attendance a “must-respond-to” indicator for youth-serving agencies; improving the identification of and responsiveness to homeless youth; and changing student and parental attitudes about attendance. As a result, chronic absence in middle grades decreased by 15% and there were more than 16,000 fewer suspensions in Baltimore City public schools. Key policy changes included: ensuring that schools are places where older students would want to be; ensuring that students have a voice; holding schools and youth-serving agencies accountable for student attendance, as well as students and their families; providing many more incentives than punitive responses; and offering students meaningful choices and alternatives that address why students are absent, such as work-to-learning opportunities, academic options, and social/emotional supports. To reduce the number of school transitions, the Baltimore City School District decided to close or phase out most of its stand-alone middle schools and, instead, open preK–8th grade and 6–12th grade transformation schools.
The second year focused on: maintaining the momentum by strengthening universal approaches, deepening the work with special populations, implementing a coordinated campaign, targeting chronically absent students going into sensitive transition grades (K, 6 and 9), and revising/improving the use of attendance data. Fothergill presented a list of initiatives the school district is currently engaged in to improve attendance and highlighted the partnership between the City Schools and the City Department of Social Services. She then stressed the importance of attendance data in improving school attendance, gave examples of how Baltimore utilizes this data and noted the lessons learned by the Initiative so far.
August 23, 2011
This meeting was a youth and community forum organized by the Community Rights Campaign, a task force member. There were approximately 80 participants in the forum, including 23 speakers. Youth, teachers/educators, parents/family members and community advocates addressed their experiences related to truancy enforcement and prevention and offered suggestions to the task force for improving and/or building on current practices.
September 13, 2011
This meeting included presentations by:
Don Ferguson, CEO, Mobile TREC SafeKidZone Program
Debra Duardo, Director of Pupil Services, on the Los Angeles USD Grad Van program
David Sapp, Staff Attorney, ACLU of Southern California, on the work of the Los Angeles Community Collaborative
3.2 million people are involved in violent crime each year and 32 million are affected by it. Mobile TREC is a technology program that seeks to mobilize families, schools and neighborhoods to provide a safety net of responders to improve protection and accountability. Families can be equipped with an option on their mobile phone that triggers a massive response when and where necessary; schools can have an affordable, easily deployable, cell phone-based, tool to manage truant students; and neighborhoods can be empowered to respond when someone needs help. With respect to truancy, smart phones with a panic button are given out to students and their families to create a safe school zone, as students can be prime targets for bullies and afraid to go to school. When the Mobile TREC system was first initiated, 2 of 10 panic button calls required police intervention, so police are now involved with the program from the beginning. Schools may apply for assistance or parents can do so voluntarily; referrals can also come from a SART or SARB. The Alhambra USD is piloting the truancy piece of Mobile TREC’s services and about two dozen students are voluntarily participating.
The LAUSD Grad Van circulates among well-populated areas, is staffed by bilingual personnel, and is outfitted with computers that are hooked up to the LAUSD data system. It provides information about school enrollment, student grades, test scores, CAHSEE exam scores, after-school program participation, and attendance, much like that of a student cumulative record. The Grad Van helps fills the tremendous need for educational and attendance information and the Children’s Court has arranged for the van to be parked at the court as often as needed so that court officers, CSWs, children’s attorneys, and holders of education rights can easily obtain educational information on the youth they are responsible for.
David Sapp pointed out that the Los Angeles Community Collaborative has been focusing on the issuance of daytime curfew violation tickets, especially those issued for tardiness, and the negative impact of these tickets on parents who aren’t even permitted to speak at hearings on their children’s behalf. LAPD’s new directive, which the Collaborative helped shape, is a positive step for addressing this issue, and more work is being done to find other solutions. The Collaborative reviewed the research on preventing/reducing truancy and looked at the Denver, Ohio and Baltimore models. Most current efforts are pilot programs and, therefore, there is not a lot of information/data on results.
He then presented the Collaborative’s handout: Addressing the Root Causes of Chronic Absence and Truancy: Developing a Comprehensive Approach to Improving Student Attendance, Academic Engagement & Community Health in Los Angeles County. This document includes the top 30 core components of a research-based strategy to improve school attendance in the County. Its four main recommendations are:
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Repeal or significantly curtail the current LAPD daytime curfew ordinance and the method of its enforcement in court
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Use the Baltimore approach as a sensible and sustainable school district-wide way of ensuring that students stay in school
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Reform the IJTC court process to focus on solutions and support
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Ensure accurate and regular public dissemination of data on a bi-annual basis from public agencies with roles in implementing or enforcing policies that affect school attendance
On behalf of the Collaborative, David stressed that a vision is needed for bringing together all that we’re learning from the pilots and ongoing research.
Sharon Watson distributed a list of the agreements and learnings of the task force over the past year which includes some components of an overall approach and highlights what is not working well currently, what is working well, and policies and practices that have proven to be effective or show promise.
A task force workgroup was then created to develop an overall approach to increasing school attendance in the County, based on the documents presented today and task force meeting discussions during the past year, to begin identifying recommended actions for implementing some of the best ideas generated so far. The remaining meetings of the task force during 2011 will focus on this work, and a summary report will be drafted by the January 2012 meeting.
*Full meeting summaries can be found on the Education Coordinating Council’s website: www.educationcoordinatingcouncil.org under Current Activities, School Attendance Task Force, Task Force Meetings, Agendas and Minutes.
Appendix FAlhambra Unified School District Programs
Parent University
Incredible Years