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A comprehensive Approach to Improving Student Attendance in Los Angeles County a report from the School Attendance Task Force


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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:



  • Repeal or significantly curtail the current LAPD daytime curfew ordinance and the method of its enforcement in court

  • Use the Baltimore approach as a sensible and sustainable school district-wide way of ensur­ing that students stay in school

  • Reform the IJTC court process to focus on solutions and support

  • 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




1 California Department of Education, Safe & Healthy Kids Program Office, Los Angeles County Expulsion, Sus­pension, and Truancy Information for 2009–2010

2 Generally, California Education Code §§46300-46307.1.

3 California Education Code §48260.

4 California Education Code §48262.

5 California Education Code §48263.6.

6 Ready, 2010.

7 Applied Survey Research & Attendance Works (April 2011).

8 Baltimore Education Research Consortium, SY 2009–2010.

9 Allensworth & Easton, What Matters for Staying On-Track and Graduating in Chicago Public Schools, Consor­tium on Chicago School Research at U of C, July 2007.

10 See “Map of LAMC 45.04 Day-Time Curfew Citations,” available at http://www.thestrategycenter.org/blog//07/30/mapping-lamc-4504-truancy-tickets-geograhical-area-race-and-gender.

11 A majority of LAUSD students live in families near or below the poverty line (California Department of Educa­tion DataQuest [2010]). Daytime curfew enforcement inherently targets lower-income students because students from poorer families are more likely to walk or take public transit than their higher-income peers. Data collected also shows that schools where curfew enforcement has been most aggressive are concen­trated in lower-income communities.

12 The data was obtained through Public Records Act requests from LASPD and LAPD, and includes figures for daytime curfew citations for the period 2004–2009. The baseline population for the City of Los Angeles includes all 5- to 17-year-old individuals within city bounds, regardless of school-enrollment status (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006–2008 American Community Survey Three-Year Estimates). The baseline population for LAUSD includes all “total relevant children” regardless of school-enrollment status (NCES School District Demograph­ics System, 2008 American Community Survey). “Total relevant children” represents all K–12 aged chil­dren eligible to enroll in LAUSD, even if they attend a non-LAUSD school. This number includes some individu­als under 5 and over 17.

13 Kenneth Adams, The Effectiveness of Juvenile Curfews at Crime Prevention, 587 The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 136, 155 (2003), available at http://ann.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/587/1/136; Mike Males and Dan Macallair, 1(2) An Analysis of Cur­few Enforcement and Juvenile Crime in California, Western Criminology Review (1999), available at http://wcr.sonoma.edu/v1n2/males.html; Matthew Lait, Study Finds Curfew Law Fails to Curb Violent Crime, Los Angeles Times, February 10, 1998, available at http://articles.latimes.com/1998/feb/10/local/me-17512.

14 Johanna Wald and Michal Kurlaender, Connected in Seattle? An Exploratory Study of Student Perceptions of Disci­pline and Attachments to Teachers in New Directions for Youth Development: Deconstructing the School-To-Prison Pipeline at 38 (2003); Gary Sweeten, Who Will Graduate? Disruption of High School Educa­tion by Arrest and Court Involvement, 23 Justice Quarterly 462, 473, 478–79 (2006) [finding that one school-based arrest doubles the likelihood that the student will drop out and that if the student appears in court, the likeli­hood of drop-out nearly quadruples]; Jon Gunnar Bernburg & Marvin D. Krohn, Labeling, life chances, and adult crime: The direct and indirect effects of official intervention in adolescence on crime in early adulthood. 41 Criminology 287–1318 (2003) [juvenile justice involvement increases likelihood of dropping out by 3.6 times].

15 American Psychological Association Zero Policy Task Force, Are Zero Tolerance Policies Effective in the Schools? An Evidentiary Review and Recommendations, American Psychologist (December 2008) [finding that “zero tolerance policies may create, enhance, or accelerate negative mental health outcomes for youth by creating increases in student alienation, anxiety, rejection, and breaking of healthy adult bonds”]; Matthew Theriot, School Resource Officers and the Criminalization of Student Behavior, 37 J. of Crim. Justi. 280, 285 (2009); Policing in Schools, ACLU White Paper (August 2009).

16 ACT statistics are taken from three sources. First, detailed internal data are kept on a monthly basis. Second, the Rand Corporation has studied the ACT Program as part of the Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act grant admin­is­tered by the Probation Department. The last period for which it studied the program and reported results was in March of 2009. Rand reported outcomes for 4,125 youth; of that number, only one youth was arrested dur­ing the baseline period and three were reported arrested during their participation in the program. There were no incarcer­ations in the baseline or during the program. School absences decreased 54 percent in the school year of 2006–2007. This third outcome was reported by an independent outcome evaluation survey of the ACT Program com­mis­sioned by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. The study was conducted by Earl Vincent primarily to inform management of the success of the program.

17 The Task Force would like to thank Amber Rivas, a student at the USC School of Social Work, for her work on the literature review and for preparing the research summary that formed the basis of this section of the report.

18 Doobay (2008), King et al. (1998), and Maynard et al. (2009) all concluded that CBT partnered with parent train­ing is effective at improving school attendance.

19 Epstein and Sheldon (2002) found that parent workshops are effective in both improving daily school attendance and also reducing chronic absenteeism. Hill and Tyson (2009) found a correlation between parental involvement and academic achievement, especially with parental academic socialization.

20 Sue Fothergill, Director of Baltimore City School’s Attendance Counts Initiative, presented at the August 9, 2011, Task Force meeting. This section of the report is based on the information and data she provided during her pre­sen­ta­tion, plus follow-up conversations that Task Force members had with Ms. Fothergill.

21 Daytime truancy tickets are dealt with under local municipal codes.

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