Partners Against Chronic Truancy

About the Program

Category: Children and Youth (Best in Category)

Year: 2012

Partners Against Chronic Truancy Sacramento County, CA Population: 1,363,482 Partners Against Chronic Truancy is a collaborative program to fight truancy in the Sacramento County school district. The District Attorney’s Office, Presiding Judge of the Juvenile Court, Public Defender and the Department of Human Assistance meet with at-risk children and their families to discuss truancy and the potential life-long impacts it can have on the student. Chronic truancy is defined as more six unexcused absences or more than 30 minutes tardy to school. This truant behavior is linked to a future in crime. Statistics have shown that 80% of prison populations are dropouts. The Partners Against Chronic Truancy Program aims to reach students at an early stage in life who began to display truant behavior. The first step in is sending in invitation from the District Attorney to the family of the truant student to the evening program attached to a copy of the student’s attendance record. The meeting consists of the Deputy District Attorney, assistant public defender, Superior Court Judge and others to speak about the long term effects of truancy. The meeting also offers parenting tips and classes, counseling services, mentoring programs and access to school nurses with an opportunity to ask question at the end of the talk. Students are spoken to individual at the end of the program and each family is supplied with a pamphlet providing truancy statistics. The target population for these letters from the District Attorney consisted of 86.3% truant students. Simply after receiving the letter of invitation, the attendance rate for these students soared to 95.9%. The program has significantly increased attendance rates of chronic truant students.