TAKING CARE OF TRUANTS: L.A. Unified's new, gentler plan emphasizes counseling over handing out tickets + smf’s 2¢

LA Times Editorial |  http://lat.ms/OSthq0

Jaime Bonilla, 15, left, and Jessica Contreras, 14, demonstrate in favor of changing Los Angeles' daytime curfew rules. The council voted unanimously to curtail the courts' role. (Los Angeles Times / February 22, 2012)

September 6, 2012  ::  City and school officials in Los Angeles had a good idea a few years back when they began ticketing students for truancy. It was also a good idea for them to back away from that approach, as they did over the last year. The expensive citations didn't work because the second, more important part of the program — to get to the bottom of why a student played hooky or was chronically late, and to provide the counseling and services to turn him or her around — wasn't carried out. A new, gentler plan has real merit, but it will fail too if the Los Angeles Unified School District doesn't make good on its pledge to provide both the discipline and the services to change students' behavior.

Under the previous rules, city and school police issued tickets with fines of up to $250 to students who were out on the streets during school hours — including students who were on their way to school. Community activists complained that during the hour or so immediately after school started, police would wait along the most popular routes to campus and write tickets to students who were running late. Some students, if they knew they would be tardy, stayed home rather than face the possibility of a ticket.

The price was steep for families. Court fees and state fines could push the cost of a ticket up to $1,000, and mandated court appearances meant lost work time for parents and more lost school time for students. Meanwhile, the so-called holistic part of the program, in which city officials, social workers and others were supposed to try to find out why students were missing school and resolve those problems, seemed to be quickly forgotten.

Yet that part of the program was key. If a high school student is late because both his parents work early in the morning and rely on him to take a younger sibling safely to elementary school, no number of $250 tickets is going to change the situation. No wonder the truancy rate rose during the heyday of the citations.

We're glad to see the district putting the emphasis on counseling truant and tardy students, not on ticketing them. The right time for students to be pulled into the justice system is when they commit crimes, not when they are late to class. School officials also should implement discipline for repeated truancy and other minor rule-breaking — on-campus detention or community service rather than a visit to court. But the most important element is, again, getting to the root of minor infractions. The district is off to a good start, but if it lets its counseling efforts falter, the soft approach will be just as ineffective as the tough-love policy was.

 

smf: I’m not sure that The Times initial premise (that ticketing students was ever a good idea) is anywhere near correct – because the reason why LAUSD took that route wasn't based on whether it was a good or bad or effective idea – it was an attempt save money and take the responsibility for attendance away from attendance counselors (eliminating professional positions) and hand it over to the school police ….without adding any school police! It was fiscal cheapskatery - made, as usual, with no eye on the potential unintended consequence.

Pupil Services and Attendance Counselors (PSCs) ) are professionals who specialize in getting absent and tardy butts into seats, every day, over time. While it is the law that kids be in school every day they are healthy until they turn 18 or graduate, attendance counselors don’t look at it as a law enforcement matter – they look at it as an educational imperative.

School police – and regular police – are trained professionals also – but for them truancy is totally a law enforcement issue. And the solution is to get the kids into school today. They are not looking at the causes for truancy because truancy and truants are the problem.

Additionally – School Police’ first and most important job is to make sure that students and school staff are safe at and travelling to-and-from school. This requires a level of trust that is compromised if a student is intimidated or worried that they may get a ticket, a fine or a day in court for being out of class. Should a school police officer – or any school staff including a custodian or a lunch lady (or busybody visiting parent) ask a kid why they’re not in class – and maybe even escort him or her to class?  Yes!

And, if the bottom line is the bottom line, a kid in court is not in school – and the school is not collecting ADA for that student that day!