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

Municipalities

1. 
   Reflect current evidence-based research and proven best practices in ordinances on day­time curfew violations. Specifically, these ordinances should:
   

• 
  Not be applied to public sidewalks immediately adjacent to school grounds or school entrances
  
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  Apply only to young people who are intentionally avoiding school, or are loitering in pub­lic places at times when they are required to be in school
  
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  Not apply to young people going directly to or returning directly home from a public meet­ing or a school sporting event, dance, or activity
  
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  Not apply to a young person who is traveling on his or her way to school, regardless of tar­diness
  
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  Not result in a court-imposed penalty if the police officer does not document that he or she assessed whether one of the statutory exceptions apply before issuing the citation
  

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  Not be punishable by a fine, but rather direct students to participate in a community or school resource-based program, such as a tutoring, mentoring, credit recovery, after-school program, or a teen or peer court program
  

2. 
   Require the collection and regular publication of data from law enforcement entities enforcing curfew statutes regarding the number of minors cited for daytime curfew offenses, along with the location and time of the citation and the age, ethnicity, race, and gender of the minors cited.
   
3. 
   Coordinate with local school districts so that city-funded services such as tutoring, men­toring, and other youth development programming are targeted to students who are most in need of the services.
   

Parents, Guardians, and Caregivers

Parents, guardians and caregivers play a critical role in ensuring that their children are consis­tently and regularly in school. Unfortunately, particularly in lower-income communities and commu­nities of color, schools often perceive parents as part of the problem instead of part of the solution. In addition to the recommendations for schools regarding engaging and partnering with parents as equals, parents, guardians, and caregivers should:

1. 
   Seek out and advocate for leadership roles in their schools to strategize about how to improve students.
   
2. 
   Create safe places and parent groups to help other parents struggling with a child or chil­dren who have school-avoidance behaviors.
   
3. 
   Advocate for schools to create strong policies supporting parents in getting their stu­dents to school regularly and on time.
   
4. 
   Demand that schools move away from approaches that criminalize students or result in school-imposed exclusions.
   
5. 
   Advocate for processes in schools where trained teams and parents work together to understand and address the root causes of truancy.
   
6. 
   Ensure that school policies and practices require that parents be contacted immediately at the first sign of an attendance issue.
   
7. 
   Seek out information and training from school and other community agencies if they are having a hard time getting their child to school on time.
   
8. 
   Demand to be included as equal partners in the dialogue around solving school-atten­dance issues.
   

Communities

Community, faith-based, and business groups have much to offer in terms of resources and sup­ports to help address school attendance issues. Too often, the community is not included as an equal partner in solving these issues and its resources are undervalued. In hard economic times like these, it is critical to leverage existing community resources and create a web of support for students struggling in school. Moreover, community organizations work directly with youth and their families before and after school, and they have critical insights into the needs and barriers to school access and engagement.

In developing an integrated system to support school attendance, community organizations and businesses should:

1. 
   Be informed about and involved in developing and shaping policies around school attendance
   
2. 
   Be engaged as partners, allies, and resources by school districts, individual schools, the courts, and law enforcement agencies
   
3. 
   Come together around the schools, children, and families in their neighborhoods to offer services, housing, after-school programs, and support to prevent truancy and address its root causes
   
4. 
   Offer resources—intervention workers, transportation, technology—to create safe pas­sages and to respond when a young person is faced with a dangerous situation
   
5. 
   Be willing to partner and pool resources with other community organizations in the county to create a web of services in the community and on school campuses to address stu­dents’ academic, social-emotional, and physical health needs
   
6. 
   Come forward to provide alternative school models that are flexible and meet youth’s needs, such as Big Picture Learning (discussed on page 10)
   
7. 
   Provide positive adult and peer relationships—whether with a family member, teacher, or mentor—as a key to reaching students, addressing their needs, holding them accountable, and motivating them to attend school
   
8. 
   Create resource directories such as the Healthy Cities database to ensure that schools and courts can quickly and easily connect families with services
   

Conclusion

The School Attendance Task Force has identified some priority areas and specific actions to focus on during 2012 to foster or implement these recommendations.

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  Task Force members have already committed to making some key policy changes:
  

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  Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Michael Nash is finalizing key reforms to the operation of the Informal Juvenile and Traffic Court (IJTC).
  

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  His first directive states that, at the youth’s option, community service will always be available in lieu of a monetary fine (including assessments and fees) for any offense adjudi­cated in the IJTC; the directive also lays out the implementation of that change.
  
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  A second directive issues guidelines for the IJTC’s handling of school attendance cases, and states that the court shall dismiss any citation for which the evidence shows the youth was late to school or en route to school.
  
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  A third directive addresses informing youth and parents of their rights in the IJTC.
  

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  Los Angeles City Councilman Tony Cárdenas has proposed an amendment to the City Munici­pal Code that directs daytime curfew enforcement to those students who are intention­ally avoiding school or loitering in public spaces, and targets resource-based commu­nity and school interventions for those students instead of assessing fines from them.
  

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  The City of Los Angeles Community Development Department and the Los Angeles Uni­fied School District have agreed to work together to launch between eleven and thir­teen new Youth WorkSource Centers to serve truant students and those who have dropped out or are at risk of dropping out of school.
  

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  As a whole, the Task Force will:
  

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  Request that the Los Angeles County Education Coordinating Council (ECC) adopt this report at its February 2012 meeting. In addition, the ECC should ask its individual mem­bers to commit to addressing the recommendations that specifically pertain to them and report back on their activities and their progress throughout the year.
  
• 
  Distribute an Executive Summary of this report, highlighting its findings and recommenda­tions, to a variety of stakeholders at multiple levels through customized meet­ings, conference presentations and workshops, seminars, and media exposure. The full report will be posted on the Los Angeles County Education Coordinating Council web­site (www.educationcoordinatingcouncil.org) as well as on the websites of other Task Force members, and electronic links to these sites and those of other key stakeholder agen­cies will be established.
  
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  Identify and create meaningful tools (such as attendance plans) for judicial officers in the dependency and delinquency courts to use to directly address school attendance issues for the youth they supervise
  
• 
  Explore options for securing free transit passes for school-aged youth, especially those residing in low-income communities or attending schools in these areas
  
• 
  Develop a resource book or technical assistance guide to assist school districts in imple­menting the proposed recommendations for a comprehensive attendance program
  

• 
  Continue to collect information on successful policies, practices, and models to help increase student attendance in Los Angeles County
  

• 
  Task Force work groups will be established to:
  

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  Investigate ways to improve interagency sharing of student attendance data
  
• 
  Develop ideas for a countywide public service announcement campaign that markets the importance of school attendance
  

• 
  Create strategies for increasing connections between school districts and available commu­nity resources