More Money for Metro Truancy Fight? (NE)

January 17, 2011

With new numbers indicating a statewide truancy problem, Gov. Dave Heineman and others want to increase efforts to keep children in the classroom.

State Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha, acting on the governor’s behalf, on Friday introduced a legislative bill that would redirect state funds toward truancy intervention programs in the Omaha metropolitan area.

The state funds would come from money that the Learning Community of Douglas and Sarpy Counties already receives for its operational costs.

Heineman said in his State of the State address Thursday that he is “very supportive” of Ashford’s efforts.

Education, he said in an interview, is important in breaking the cycle of poverty. And the state needs a highly educated workforce to drive its economic success.

Yet about 22,000 of the state’s public school students, or 8 percent, last year missed more than 20 days of school, the governor said. A breakdown by the Nebraska Department of Education indicates that 11th-graders who missed more than 20 days of school scored 30 points lower on last year’s statewide reading assessment than those who missed fewer than 20 days.

“If you’re not in school, you can’t learn,” Heineman said. “This has to be a priority.”

A number of efforts have already begun to address the issue of excessive absences, both in the metropolitan area and in other parts of the state.

In the Omaha area, Building Bright Futures, an education-focused philanthropy, chose truancy and school attendance as one of its first focus areas when it was launche d in 2007. Last February, a Douglas County judge started a court-supervised diversion program aimed at the problem.

The intervention programs called for in Ashford’s bill would follow a plan to be developed by the 11 school superintendents in Douglas and Sarpy Counties.

The superintendents have agreed to make the issue a priority, said Gretna Superintendent Kevin Riley, the superintendents group’s liaison to the Learning Community.

The group, he said, has been working with Ashford, the Douglas and Sarpy County attorneys, judges, and public and private agencies involved in child services on how to coordinate anti-truancy efforts. The group plans to have that protocol ready in a couple of months.

Ashford said the bill, Legislative Bill 463, is intended to help implement a new law that took effect in July.

That law, among other things, yielded the new absenteeism data. It required school districts to establish policies stating the number of absences that would trigger a district response, to report absences to the state and to collaborate with county attorneys on how to deal with truants.

The bill would redirect at least half the funds the Learning Community currently receives for its administrative operations toward the new programs. The Learning Community currently receives $882,000 a year.

The shift would occur until the truancy rate in Learning Community school districts — in this case, the number of students absent more than 10 days a year — has been halved. Ashford hopes to see that happen within two years.

Rick Kolowski, chairman of the Learning Community Council, said the organization agrees with the need to reduce absenteei sm.

But the organization has other focuses under state law. And its other funding streams are tightly restricted. If part of its operating funds are reallocated, he said, the organization probably would need to discuss removing some of those restrictions in order to support the Learning Community’s administrative operations.

“We’re willing to be a partner on this, but we also have our original charge under the learning community law,” he said.

The measure also would require schools and agencies to share information about any student who misses more than 10 days of school or is suspended for any reason, Ashford said.

Riley, the Gretna superintendent, said partnerships among schools and agencies are necessary if communities are to respond immediately and not wait until a student has missed 20 days of school, the trigger point for court referrals.

Many families need additional services from those agencies to help address barriers — such as illness and parents’ job losses — that keep kids from being in school.

“It’s the most powerful opportunity we’ve had in many years to coordinate all the child-serving agencies,” Riley said.

Both Heineman and Nebraska Education Commissioner Roger Breed emphasized the responsibility that parents and communities bear in making sure kids get to school.

Breed said he was struck by the fact that more than 1,500 first- and second-graders — a key age in learning to read — missed more than 20 days of school.

Even if a portion of those youngsters were chronically ill, that still leaves a large number out for other reasons. First- and second-graders don’t tend t o miss school on their own, he said. Their absences mean that adults aren’t getting them there, and that becomes a community problem.

“The excessive absenteeism is a statewide problem,” he said.