Truancy: First Step to a Lifetime of Problems.

Eileen M. Garry

This Bulletin is one of a series of OJJDP Bulletins focusing on
strategies in the Youth Out of the Education Mainstream (YOEM)
initiative. YOEM is a joint effort of the Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention and the Safe and Drug-Free Schools
Program, U.S. Department of Education, to address the needs of youth
who attend school irregularly because they are afraid or
intimidated, truant, suspended or expelled, school dropouts, or in
need of help transitioning back into mainstream schools from
juvenile detention and correctional settings.

For most students, skipping school used to be a one-time lark. More
often than not, the antics were short-lived because shopkeepers,
neighbors, and family friends were quick to report them to parents
or school authorities.

Today, truancy has become a major problem in this country that
negatively influences the future of our youth and costs taxpayers
thousands of dollars. With daily absentee rates as high as 30
percent in some cities, it is not surprising that truancy is rated
among the major problems facing schools. The statistics speak
volumes:

*  In New York City's public school system, the Nation's largest,
about 150,000 of 1 million public school students are absent on a
typical day. School officials do not know how many of them are
absent without a legitimate excuse.1 

*  The Los Angeles Unified School District, the Nation's second
largest public school system, reports that an average of 62,000
students, or 10 percent of its enrollment, are out of school each
day. Of these, only half come back with written excuses.2

*  In Detroit, 40 public school attendance officers investigated
66,440 chronic absenteeism complaints during the 1994-95 school
year.3 

Truancy may be the beginning of a lifetime of problems for students
who routinely skip school. Because these students fall behind in
their school work, many drop out of school. Dropping out is easier
than catching up.

Truancy is a stepping stone to delinquent and criminal activity. A
report  compiled by the Los Angeles County Office of Education on
factors contributing to juvenile delinquency concluded that chronic
absenteeism is the most powerful predictor of delinquent behavior.4 
 

Truant students are at higher risk of being drawn into behavior
involving drugs, alcohol, or violence. A California deputy assistant
attorney who handles truancy cases says he has never seen a gang
member who wasn't a truant first.5 Several studies have documented
the correlation between drug use and truancy. A report from the
University of Maryland found that 51 percent of female juvenile
detainees not in school at the time of their arrests tested positive
for drug use.6 Another study by the U.S. Department of Justice's
Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) program reported that more than half (53
percent) of a group of 403 male juvenile arrestees in San Diego,
California, tested positive for drug use when taken to juvenile
hall. Not surprisingly, those who did not attend school were more
likely (67 percent versus 49 percent) to test positive for drug use
than those who did attend.7 

Many police departments report that daytime crime rates are rising
in part because students are committing crimes instead of going to
class. They are vandalizing cars, shoplifting, and scrawling
graffiti on office buildings. When police in Van Nuys, California,
conducted a 3-week truancy sweep, shoplifting arrests fell 60
percent.8 Police in St. Paul, Minnesota, report that crimes such as
purse snatching dropped almost 50 percent after police began picking
up truants and taking them to a new school attendance center.
Officials in Roswell, New Mexico, say daytime burglaries and other
reportable crimes in neighborhoods surrounding the town's two high
schools have decreased significantly since a daytime curfew
ordinance was enacted in 1994.

Society Pays the Price

Truancy is costly. It costs students an education, resulting in
reduced earning capacity. It costs school districts hundreds of
thousands of dollars each year in lost Federal and State funds that
are based on daily attendance figures. It costs businesses, which
must pay to train uneducated workers. It costs taxpayers, who must
pay higher taxes for law enforcement and welfare costs for dropouts
who end up on welfare rolls or underemployed.

Frustrated by this social and economic burden, communities across
the Nation are fighting back. Some counties are contemplating fining
students if they are not in class during school hours. Others are
fining or jailing parents who permit their children to continually
miss school. (Note: In this Bulletin, the term parent refers to
either a parent or other legal guardian.)

 Parental neglect is a common cause of truancy. Many parents of
truant students do not value education. Some children are kept at
home to work or babysit preschool siblings. Others are prevented
from attending school because of problems at home, at school, or in
their neighborhood. One truant officer described a student whose
parents kept him home so that he would not have to walk past the
neighborhood crack house, and immigrant students in Minnesota
reported staying home because they fear students at their schools. 

Because truancy often indicates bigger problems in a child's life,
many communities are designing truancy reduction programs that
involve schools, law enforcement, families, businesses, judicial and
social service agencies, and community and youth service
organizations. Seven programs, located in Arizona,  California,
Kansas, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, are
achieving good results through innovative approaches that:

*  Recognize that parents must be involved and held responsible for
their children's school attendance.

*  Provide intensive monitoring, counseling, and other family-
strengthening services to truants and their families.

 Each program described below has addressed the truancy issue by
developing a coordinated response that takes advantage of programs
in their community. One uses probation officers to intervene with
students, while another depends on the county attorney. Several have
targeted their efforts at middle school students, while others are
working with children as young as 5 years old.

Truancy Program Thriving

Public and private agencies in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, have pooled
resources and expertise for a program that has successfully removed
truant juveniles from the streets during school hours and reduced
absenteeism, dropout rates, and daytime crime rates.

Truancy Habits Reduced Increasing Valuable Education (THRIVE)a
consortium of law enforcement, social service, and community
agencieswas initiated by the Oklahoma County District Attorney's
Office. THRIVE fills a gap in services to youth by dealing with
community problems that need a coordinated strategy.

The program began its efforts by convincing the Oklahoma State
legislature to enact a tougher antitruancy law that allows
misdemeanor charges to be filed against parents if their children
miss more than 10 consecutive days of school. The law also
authorizes local law enforcement professionals to act as attendance
officers, detain truant juveniles, and transport them to a specified
location after agreement with a school district. 

The consortium's next challenge was to open a truant processing
center, which began operating in 1989. Consortium members provide
staff, facilities, supplies, and equipment, and they have since
opened a second center. Open full-time during the school year, the
centers are staffed by professional volunteers from the district
attorney's office, police department, and public schools. A private,
nonprofit organization, Youth Cornerstone, was established in 1990
to provide greater opportunities for funding.

Police officers transport truant students to the centers, where they
are interviewed and their parents are contacted. School officials
also are contacted to confirm students' school status and to
determine if a pattern of absences exists. This information is
provided to parents when they arrive at the center. Referrals for
additional services are provided as needed. Students are released
directly to a parent or relative within 1 hour or turned over to the
Youth Services Shelter. The district attorney's office sends parents
a letter informing them of compulsory school attendance laws and the
consequences of nonattendance. Followup attendance checks are made
after students have had contact with THRIVE. 

With an annual budget of $75,000, the program served 848 children
(with an average age of 13.8) during the 1994-95 school year. The
program was patterned after the Truancy Abatement and Burglary
Suppression (TABS) Program in San Jose, California, a community
similar demographically to Oklahoma City. The THRIVE model has been
used to implement similar programs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and in
other cities. 

THRIVE is making a difference in the lives of children. Since 1989,
the program has dealt with more than 3,600 truants. During this
time, the Oklahoma City Police Department reports a 33-percent
reduction in daytime burglaries. Oklahoma City schools report a 1.3-
percent reduction in dropout rates and a 1.7-percent increase in
daily attendance. More than 75 percent of truants are released to
parents, who generally react positively to the opportunity to
address the issue of school attendance with their children.

For more information about THRIVE, contact:

Pam Harrell
     Executive Director
     P.O. Box 18674
     Oklahoma City, OK 73154
     405-841-0675

Truancy Program 
Targets Problems 
Before They Start 

Children who continually miss school often are placed in the custody
of social service agencies, a move that is traumatic for children
and their families and expensive for taxpayers. Recognizing the need
to address this problem and find a way to keep these children in
school, officials in Neosho County, Kansas, developed a program that
helps prevent a child's removal from home, increases school
attendance, and strengthens families.

The program began in 1993 when Kansas Department of Social and
Rehabilitation Services (SRS) officers in the city of Chanute
noticed a correlation between truancy and crime. With the Neosho
County Attorney and local teachers, they initiated the At School, On
Time, Ready to Work program. It recognizes that truancy is a problem
not only for children, but also for families, schools, and
communities. Schools, SRS, and courts work together to provide
intensive supervision and therapy for children and support and
education for parents.

Under Kansas law, all children under the age of 16 not attending
school are reported to SRS or to the county attorney. Pending a
referral from the school, the county attorney invites the truant
child and his or her family to enter the program. If they agree,
parent and child are required to sign a contract to participate in
the program for 90 days. During this time, the program provides:

*  Intensive supervision of the child. An intensive supervision
worker is assigned for the entire 90-day period, verifying the
child's school attendance daily and meeting several times a week
with him or her during the first 30 days of the contract. The worker
serves as the liaison between SRS, the county attorney, the school,
and the family.

*  Support and group therapy services to the child. Students in the
program meet regularly to share life experiences with a licensed
family therapist and to learn skills to build self-esteem and
confidence in school. Children in need of individual therapy are
referred to the appropriate agency.

*  Support and education services to the  parents of the child.
Parents are required to attend group meetings that focus on
effective parenting techniques and the importance of their child's
education.

After a family completes the program, students are tracked, with
particular attention given to ensuring their attendance at school.

Of the 9 families and 12 middle school children enrolled in the
project during the 1994-95 school year, only 1 child became the
subject of a court petition. The remaining children stayed out of
SRS custody, and none were reported to have committed offenses
during the summer. The families who graduated from the program
reported that they improved family communication and better
understood and worked with their children's behavior.

The program was so well received that it moved to elementary schools
last year (1995-96), where it served an additional 12 to 15 families
and approximately 20 children. Graduates of the program will be
tracked to determine if intervention at an earlier stage prevents
truancy and juvenile offending.

Neosho County Attorney Sheryl A. Beagley, pleased with results from
the first 2 years of the program, reports that the county has
received inquiries from other communities interested in implementing
it. She believes it can be replicated because it is so cost-
effective. The cost of the project for the nine families served in
1994-95 was $3,000the cost of placing one child in SRS custody for
90 days. The program received private insurance, Medicaid, and State
Family Services funds. The program used $1,600 in Family Services
funds, which is much less than the cost of keeping a child in foster
care for 30 days. Before the truancy project was established, SRS
routinely placed children in foster care because of truancy.
Taxpayers may have saved as much as $30,000 in custody expenses by
spending only 10 percent of that amount on prevention.

For more information about At School, On Time, Ready to Work,
contact: 

Sheryl A. Beagley 
     Neosho County Attorney's Office
     Judicial Center
     P.O. Box 370
     102 South Lincoln
     Chanute, KS 66720
     316-431-5750

Program Offers a 
Helping Hand

Officials in Atlantic County, New Jersey, are preventing truancy
through a program that encourages parents to work with schools to
keep their children in class. Project Helping Hand is an early
identification and intervention program that provides counseling for
parents and elementary students at risk of developing chronic
truancy problems. It began in 1989 with Title II Formula Grants
Program funds from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention (OJJDP) in the U.S. Department of Justice. (The Title II
Formula Grants Program provides grants to States to prevent and
control delinquency and to improve their juvenile justice systems.) 

Students are referred to the program by school officials, although
referrals from parents or social service agencies are also accepted.
Students who have 5 to 15 days of unexcused absence, excluding
absence due to illness or suspension, are eligible to participate. 

Once a student has been accepted into the program, a counselor
immediately begins gathering student information from school
personnel and makes every effort, including a home visit if
necessary, to contact parents.

After an in-person assessment of the youth and family, the counselor
meets jointly with the family and school personnel to develop a plan
to improve the child's attendance and address family needs. The
program offers weekly counseling for up to 8 weeks.

Counselors use a variety of intervention strategies and resources,
including signed cooperative agreements among parents, youth, and
the school; telephone discussions with appropriate parties; and
other school resources such as child study teams, tutoring, and
parent-teacher conferences. When necessary, counselors also refer
families to housing, food stamp, day care, medical, substance abuse,
psychiatric, parent support, and single-

parent programs.

Counselors strive to use extended family members as a support system
and to involve the family with the school as often as possible so
that they understand school procedures and are comfortable working
with the school on their child's behalf.

If a family fails to keep appointments, counselors often make home
visits to encourage cooperation. If parents continue to resist
participating or school attendance does not improve, the case may be
referred to the Family Court.

Once a student's school attendance improves and other needed
services have begun, the counselor closes the case and places the
student on aftercare status. School personnel are then responsible
for monitoring attendance and communicating with parents. The
counselor makes phone or in-person contact with the family, school,
and others at 30-, 60-, and 90-day intervals, reinforcing the
positive work of the family and ensuring their continued
participation in referral services. 

The program operates in 12 schools. Referrals are distributed
equally between males and females. In keeping with the program's
focus on early prevention, most students referred to the program are
in grades K-3.

The program was originally implemented in Atlantic City, the
county's main urban area. It has been expanded to the suburb of
Pleasantville and to Egg Harbor Township.

According to Sally Ann Williams, director of family counseling, 83
percent of the 290 children participating in the program in the
1994-95 school year experienced no recidivism. For the 1995-96
school year, 84 percent experienced no recidivism. These numbers are
consistent with results from previous years.

For more information about Project Helping Hand, contact: 

Sally Ann Williams 
 or Colleen Denelsbezk
     Atlantic County Division of 
 Intergenerational Services
     101 South Shore Road
     Northfield, NJ 08225
     609-645-5862

Police and Youth 
Services Work 
Together To Fight 
Truancy 

Recognizing that truant students were a growing concern in St. Paul,
Minnesota, four Ramsey County departments devised the Ramsey County
Truancy and Curfew Violation Center program, which uses school
counselors, the county attorney's office, and police to help keep
middle school students in school. The program began in 1994 and
provides the following intensive truancy reduction efforts:

*  Intervention through the school. Students with 3 to 5 days of
unexcused absence are referred to the St. Paul Youth Service Bureau
(YSB) for assistance with problem solving, counseling, family
intervention, and other social services. A YSB staff person spends
4 days a week at the school, meeting with the student and parents to
determine why the student is missing school and what services are
needed to resolve the problem. The staff member monitors the
student's attendance daily and, if necessary, refers the case to the
county attorney's office for further legal action.

*  Intervention through the county attorney's office. First-time
truants and their parents are given an educational presentation by
a Ramsey County attorney. If a student continues to be truant, the
county attorney schedules a meeting with the student, parents, and
school staff to develop a contract for improved attendance. If the
contract is not followed, an expedited court hearing is scheduled.

*  Intervention through St. Paul Schools Attendance Center. Police
officers pick up truants and deliver them to the 

Attendance Center, which is staffed by educational assistants and
staff from YSB. Students are released only to parents or guardians. 

The program's counseling services are funded with OJJDP Title V
funds for local delinquency prevention and by the city of St. Paul,
YSB, the St. Paul Police Department, and local schools. YSB
counselors offer student and family counseling; peer and parent
support groups; tutoring, recreational, and enrichment activities;
and referrals to community resources to help families address issues
contributing to truant behavior. 

St. Paul's Attendance Center is an important part of  the program
because it gives police a place to take truants and offers students
access to intervention services. It accepts 10 to 15 students a day.
Last year the Center served more than 1,100 truants and their
families, the majority of whom were from the Hmong (North Laos)
community. These students reported boredom or fear as the major
reasons they did not attend school. In these cases, project
counselors work with schools to alleviate the problem and reach out
to parents through local parent-teacher organizations. The program
plans to develop a mechanism to track the 250 students who were
directly served by YSB counselors at the middle schools during
1994-95. 

The program has had a positive impact on the court system. Because
truants are taken to the Attendance Center instead of being handled
through the courts, the backlog of court processing has been reduced
drastically. Local law enforcement officials like the program
because it gives officers a place to take truants without requiring
cumbersome paperwork at the police department. Police also report
that truancy enforcement is having a noticeable impact on the crime
rate. According to Police Chief William Finney, between 1994 and
1995, the Attendance Center's first year of existence, crimes such
as purse snatching were reduced nearly 50 percent. 

For more information about the Ramsey County Truancy and Curfew 

Violation Center, contact:
Sgt. John Harrington
     St. Paul Police Department
     100 East 11th Street
     St. Paul, MN 55101
     612-292-3612

Helping Neglected Children Stay in School 

Probation officers and school officials have joined together in Kern
County, California, to help children, many of them neglected, stay
in school. The Truancy Reduction Program works to increase average
daily school attendance by reducing the risk factors contributing to
children's behavioral, delinquency, and substance abuse problems.

Funded by the Kern County Superintendent of Schools through a
consortium of independent school districts, the program uses two
deputy probation officers from the Kern County Probation Office to
work with students and their families. 

Students are referred to the program by consortium member schools
after intervention efforts have failed to improve their school
attendance. Once a student is referred, a probation officer contacts
his or her parents by mail and then meets with the family at least
four times.

The officer also makes unannounced home visits, checks attendance at
the school each week, counsels parents and students, and refers the
families to social service agencies. The attendance of every student
referred to the program is tracked by the school for 1 year. When
students continue to skip school, the probation officer refers them
back to the school for possible referral to the district attorney's
office.

These interventions are designed to improve attendance, increase
academic performance, and improve social functioning by meeting the
diverse needs of children and their families.

The majority of students referred to the program receive assistance
from one or more of the county's social service agencies, and the
probation officer frequently networks with caseworkers from these
agencies. This networking, as well as followup monitoring,
contributes to the program's success.

During the 1993-94 school year, 626 students participated in the
program; 347 participated in 1994-95. These students represent less
than 1.5 percent and 1 percent, respectively, of the student
population in their school districts. Twenty-one percent of the
students in the program in 1993-94 had no unexcused absences after
entering the program, compared with 14 percent in 1994-95. 

The number of students participating decreased from 1993 to 1994
because of significant changes in the program's referral process
between 1993 and 1995. Starting in the fall of 1994, student
referrals were reviewed by a school student assistance team before
their acceptance, resulting in more appropriate identification of
truant students and decreased caseloads. Data for the 1995-96 school
year will be available in late 1996.

 For more information about the Truancy Reduction Program, contact:

Steve Hageman
     Kern County Superintendent of 
         Schools Office
     1300 17th Street-City Centre
     Bakersfield, CA 93301-4533
    805-636-4757

Coalition Works To Save Kids

Alarmed by a noticeable rise in juvenile crime during school hours
and a large increase in the number of school dropouts and children
referred to the juvenile court for status offenses, a broad-based
coalition of citizens and businesses in Arizona initiated a program
that addresses truancy through community interventions.

The Save Kids Partnership was modeled after Operation SAVE KIDS, a
successful truancy program in Peoria, Arizona. The Partnership
comprises 10 cities and towns and 15 school districts serving more
than 63,000 students in western Maricopa County, which includes part
of Phoenix. The Partnership is sponsored by WESTMARC, a coalition of
businesses, utilities, education institutions, development firms,
property owner organizations, industries, cities, and towns in the
county.

The Partnership program targets youth 6 to 16 years old. It requires
school personnel to monitor school attendance closely and notify
parents promptly if their children have 3 days of unexcused absence.
The parents must respond, outlining measures they have taken to
ensure that their children are attending school. If a child
continues to be truant (as evidenced by 5 days of unexcused
absence), the school forwards the matter to the city prosecutor's
office. The prosecutor sends a second letter to the parents. If a
sixth unexcused absence occurs, the school notifies the prosecutor
or law enforcement agency to request that criminal charges be filed
against the parents. 

In lieu of formal criminal proceedings, the prosecutor can offer
families a deferred prosecution diversion program designed to
strengthen family relationships and encourage youth to go to school.
The program includes a risk assessment and evaluation of every
participating youth and parent and requires them to complete a
counseling program approved by the juvenile court and Office of the
City Attorney. The program requires students to attend school and
participate in teen or adolescent group counseling and educational
programs while their parents complete a parenting skills support
group. If parents and juveniles complete the terms of the diversion
program's stipulated agreement, the case is dismissed. 

If the terms are not met, the matter is reviewed for purposes of
proceeding as a criminal violation and may be referred to court.

The original Peoria program, Operation SAVE KIDS, has demonstrated
solid results. When the program measured its impact on 12 elementary
and 2 high schools within Peoria's city limits, it found that after
parents were notified by mail of their child's absence, attendance
increased for 72.2 percent of the students and only 27.8 percent
were referred for prosecution.

The program is conducting a comparison study of three groups:
juveniles who are criminally charged with a status offense and fail
to appear in court (the control group); juveniles who are criminally
charged with a status offense, appear in court with their parents,
and opt for, but fail to complete, the diversion program; and
juveniles who complete the diversion program with their parents. 

Ninety-two percent of Peoria juveniles who completed the diversion
program with their parents did not recidivate. Program officials
also found that 95 percent of juveniles referred to court for status
offenses committed their first offense at an average age of 14; 82
percent of all truancy referrals were first-time offenders; and 48
percent of juveniles cited for status offenses were from broken
homes. 

 Operation SAVE KIDS began in 1994 with Title II Formula Grants
Program funds from OJJDP and a matching grant from the city of 
Peoria. The western Maricopa County program received 1995 Title V
delinquency prevention funds from OJJDP. 

For more information about the Save Kids Partnership, contact:

Diane McCarthy
     WESTMARC President
     9017 North 57th Drive
     Glendale, AZ 85302
     602-435-0431

For more information about Operation SAVE KIDS, contact:

Terry Bays Smith
     City of Peoria
     Assistant City Attorney
     8401 West Monroe Street
     Peoria, AZ 85345
     602-412-7347

Roswell Curfew 
Program Makes a 
Difference

Hoping to make a difference in a truancy problem that had become
almost epidemic in areas of Roswell, New Mexico, the city's mayor
instituted a curfew during school hours in 1994. The primary goal of
the ordinance is to strictly enforce school attendance. It allows
police to question students who appear to be truant in the community
and requires school officials to notify parents or guardians when
students are tardy or absent. Those students who continue to be
truant may be assigned community service, and their parents may be
fined up to $100.

Roswell's initiative illustrates how the mayor, police, city agency
leaders, city council members, educators, and citizens can
effectively deal with a major problem by working together. The
program's results are impressive, and cities in Arizona, California,
and New Mexico have requested information about the curfew from the
Roswell Police Department.

Since the curfew began, Roswell police report that daytime
burglaries and other reportable crimes in neighborhoods surrounding
the city's two high schools have decreased. Police also found that:

*  Students who commit burglaries or other crimes generally commit
them during school hours and then return after school to retrieve
the hidden stolen property.

*  Many students detained for daytime curfew violations had been
involved with criminal activities such as substance abuse, burglary,
larceny, and vandalism.

*  Many detained truants had records indicating an escalating
pattern of delinquent behavior.

*  Most detained truants were aware of and understood the
consequences of breaking the law.  

School officials are pleased with the results of the daytime curfew
because it has reinforced the school district's policy of placing
truant students into in-school suspension (ISS). Students in ISS are
not allowed to sit at home or roam the streets. Instead they must
perform community service such as removing graffiti or picking up
trash. 

Area businesses are reporting truant students to police more
frequently than in the past. Before the curfew was enacted, police
instructed callers to contact the Children, Youth and Families
Department. However, little was done to intercede with truant
children on the spot. The curfew provides an effective way for
police to intervene immediately and show youth the consequences of
their offending behavior.

Parents are pleased with the program because, until the police
contact them, they often are unaware of their child's absence from
school. Although the schools attempt to contact parents in the
evening to report unexcused absences, the computer-generated calls
are easily intercepted by truant students.

Chaves County, which includes Roswell, is adopting a similar
ordinance for county students. The city of Roswell is especially
pleased because the county curfew will deter truants from leaving
the city to avoid the Roswell Police Department.

For more information about the Roswell Daytime Curfew Program,
contact:

Mayor Thomas Jennings
     City of Roswell
     P.O. Drawer 1838
     Roswell, NM 88202-1838
     505-624-6700

Acting Police Chief Mike Jurecek
     Roswell Police Department
     P.O. Box 1994
     Roswell, NM 88202-1994
     505-624-6770

County Sheriff Terrell Tucker

     Chaves County
    P.O. Box 1396
     Roswell, NM 88202-1396
     505-624-6500  

Summary

As these varied programs indicate, the issue of truancy has captured
the attention of communities across the Nation. Whether establishing
truancy centers, providing parenting classes, or making unannounced
home visits, these seven communities have chosen to intervene before
truancy leads to more serious problems for youth and the community.

These communities are wise to be concerned. Students who miss school
frequently are often unable to develop interpersonal relationships
or gain the knowledge and skills they will need for future
employment. Frequent absence affects school performance and can lead
to delinquent behavior. A Department of Justice study found that
students with low reading achievement show delinquent behavior more
often than students with higher reading scores.9    

Many chronic truants are also likely to drop out of school. U.S.
Department of Education statistics indicate that dropouts have lower
earnings, experience more unemployment, and are more likely to end
up on welfare and in prison than students who complete high school
or college.10 

However, positive factors can protect youth either by reducing the
impact of risks or by changing the way they respond to risk factors.
Examples of protective factors include positive adult and peer
relationships, healthy beliefs, and clear standards of behavior.
These factors will not only result in students attending school
regularly, but, once in school, at-risk youth will benefit from
exposure to such protective factors.

Truancy prevention and intervention efforts protect youth from risk
factors and help reduce juvenile delinquency and other related
problems. Programs that prevent a young person from becoming
involved in the juvenile justice system save taxpayers money,
prevent more people from becoming victims of crime, and help prevent
the development of future criminal offenders. For the Nation's next
generation, preventing truancy may mean the difference between a
lifetime of problems or a lifetime of accomplishments.

Resources

Nearly half of the 50 States have implemented truancy prevention and
intervention programs using funding from the Juvenile Justice
Delinquency Prevention Act Formula Grants Program, administered by
OJJDP, Office of Justice Programs. For more information contact the
Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse at 800-638-8736.

In addition, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education have
created a manual to help parents, school and law enforcement
officials, and community leaders combat truancy. The guide describes
how successful antitruancy initiatives across the country were
planned and implemented. For copies, call 800-624-0100. The full
text of the document is available through the 

Department of Education Web site at 

http://www.ed.gov.  

Other Sources 
of Information

Abolish Chronic Truancy

Los Angeles County District Attorney's  Office
Bureau of Special Operations, Juvenile Division
300 South Park Avenue, Room 621
Pomona, CA 91766
909-620-3330

Alternative Center for Truancy

823 West Central Boulevard
Orlando, FL 32805
407-836-8800

Fulton County Juvenile Court Truancy  Intervention Project

4455 Capitol Avenue SW.
Atlanta, GA 30312
404-730-1122

National Association of School Resource  Officers

P.O. Box 3379
Sarasota, FL 34230-3379
941-951-5010

National Center for Education Statistics
Office of Education Research and 
     Improvement
U.S. Department of Education
555 New Jersey Avenue NW.
Washington, DC  20208-5721
202-219-2221

National Dropout Prevention Center
Clemson University
205 Martin Street
Clemson, SC 29634-0726
864-656-2599

National School Safety Center
4165 Thousand Oaks Boulevard, Suite 290
Westlake Village, CA 91362
805-373-9977

Stop and Cite Program
Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety
Youth and Family Services Division
500 City Hall Drive
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
707-584-2699

Truancy Abatement Burglary Suppression
Crime Prevention Unit
San Jose Police Department
San Jose, CA 95110
408-277-4133

Truancy Intervention Program
Office of the Ramsey County Attorney
50 West Kellogg Boulevard, Suite 315
St. Paul, MN 55102-1657
612-266-3125

Truancy Mediation Program
Mediation Center of Gaston County
401 North Highland Street

Gastonia, NC 28052
704-868-9576

Truancy Prevention Service
Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County
Volunteer Services
616 Adams
Memphis, TN 38105
901-528-8400

     In addition, many resources are available online when searching
truancy, including State legislation and other programs.

Endnotes

1.  B. Shuster, L.A. School Truancy Exacts a Growing Social Price,
Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1995, sec. A, p. 12.

2.  Shuster,  p. 1.

3.  J. Richardson, Searching for Answers to Student Absenteeism,
Detroit Free Press, February 7, 1996, sec. NWS, p. 1A.

4.  Shuster,  p. 1.

5.  J. Kass, Curfew Mulled as Way to Stem Truancy, Crime, Los
Angeles Times, March 31, 1996, sec. B, p. 1.

6.  E.D. Wish, T.A. Gray, and E.B. Levine (1996), Recent Drug Use in
Female Juvenile Detainees: Estimates from Interviews, Urinalysis,
and Hair Analysis (College Park, MD: Center for Substance Abuse
Research, University of Maryland), p. 4.

7.  Drug Use Among San Diego Arrestees, SANDAG Info, Special Issue
1996 (San Diego, CA: San Diego Association of Governments).

8.  Shuster,  p. 1.

9.  D. Huizinga, R. Loeber, and T. Thornberry (1995), Urban
Delinquency and Substance Abuse (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of
Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention), p.
15.

10. M. McMillen, P. Kaufman, and S. Whitener (1994), Dropout Rates
in the United States: 1993 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of
Education, National Center for Education Statistics).

From the Administrator

Although truancy's financial burdens are considerable, its cost
cannot be measured in dollars alone. For a growing number of youth,
truancy may be a first step to a lifetime of unemployment, crime,
and incarceration. As this Bulletin illustrates, truancy often leads
to dropping out of school, delinquency, and drug abuse. It may even
be the precursor to adult crime.

Classroom absentee rates in our cities are as high as 30 percent.
Challenged by this problem's mounting social and economic burden,
communities are fighting back. Truancy: First Step to a Lifetime of
Problems describes seven promising community programs that are
reducing truancy and juvenile delinquency by enlisting and
coordinating a broad array of local resources.

All of the initiatives emphasize the need to intensively monitor,
counsel, and strengthen the families and communities of truant and
delinquent youth. They also recognize that parents must be involved
and held responsible for their children's school attendance. By
aggressively intervening when students are young and targeting
problems before they start, these programs are making a significant
difference in the lives of children and the neighborhoods in which
they live.

Shay Bilchik

Administrator 

This Bulletin was prepared by Eileen M. Garry, special assistant to
the Administrator, OJJDP, with the assistance of Marc Jackson of the
Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse and Kay McKinney, OJJDP consultant.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is a
component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the
Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the
National Institute of Justice, and the Office for Victims of Crime.