Posted on 07/05/2005 12:51:18 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Bill and Rebecca Hardin sat in a Cypresswood court recently, waiting to find out whether they would be fined as much as $500 each because their son was allegedly truant from school.
On the same day, a 17-year-old Spring High student was hauled off to the county jail for at least a day for failing to honor a contractual promise to attend school.
And some students who played hooky during the school year are spending days of summer vacation washing school buses under court order.
The youths and their parents have been landing before judges as part of an anti-truancy program run by the Harris County District Attorney's Office in four justice of the peace courts. The program relies on early intervention, tough love and scaring-families-straight techniques.
After a student has three unexcused absences, the district attorney's office sends a letter warning the child and parents that they will face criminal charges and fines up to $500 each if the child has three more unexcused absences.
During the past two school years, the district attorney's office has sent out more than 15,800 warning letters to parents and children in nine area school districts.
If the warning goes unheeded, another is sent notifying the student that he or she has been charged with truancy and the parents that they have been charged with contributing to non-attendance at school, both Class C misdemeanors.
School officials say anecdotal evidence and limited early statistics indicate that the program is working. Prosecutors can get the attention of kids and parents when school officials can't, said Juan Lumbreras, attendance specialist for the southeast region of the Houston Independent School District.
"The program's been real positive. It helps make students and parents aware," he said. "We get tired of repeating ourselves."
'Been very successful' The district attorney's office runs the program in JP courts in Pasadena, Clear Lake, Sagemont in southeast Houston and on Cypresswood in northwest Harris County.
School districts participating are Pasadena, Clear Creek, Waller, Tomball, Spring, Aldine and La Porte. HISD's southeast region, which includes Milby and Chavez high schools, and part of the Cy-Fair district also participate.
"It's a great program. The whole idea is to expedite the process and get the kids back in school," said County Judge Robert Eckels. "It's been very successful in changing the habits of kids heading down the path of truancy."
In the past, schools would send out letters or make calls to homes about a child's non-attendance. Typically, only after a student had accrued dozens of absences would a prosecutor become involved and bring a charge.
"You'd see a case in April for 45 absences in fall semester," said Bill Hawkins, chief of the district attorney's juvenile division. By then, he said, it might be too late for the student to salvage anything from the school year.
During the school year that just ended, the district attorney's office sent out 11,910 letters to parents whose children had three unexcused absences.
Hawkins said that only 20 percent of the students who received warning letters cut school three more times.
Parents of those who do face a shock.
Bill Hardin was stunned when he received a letter informing him that he had been charged.
"At first, I couldn't believe it," said Hardin after a hearing on the family's cases in June. "They said I was contributing to the delinquency of a minor. But I was sending him to school."
Hardin said his son earns good grades at Spring High, but had skipped school several times to go fishing.
Parents are responsible Some parents said it is unfair of judges to hold parents accountable for making sure wayward, disobedient children don't skip classes.
Ernest Townsel said his ex-wife, Vonda Hill, tries to make sure their daughter, 16, goes to Westfield High, and their daughter, whose truancy case has landed before Judge J. Kent Adams, assures them that she is attending.
Hill is a busy single mother who has to rely on what her daughter tells her, Townsel said in an interview, and the daughter isn't always truthful about her attendance.
He asked the judge to give his daughter the shock treatment of a day in jail, but the judge declined, instead fining Hill $200.
Court officials argue that however difficult, parents are responsible for their minor children. Even after truancy charges are filed, prosecutors work to avoid trials and criminal convictions.
When youths and parents arrive at court, prosecutors try to convince them to agree to a contract stipulating that the students will attend class for six months without any unexcused absences.
Prosecutors coordinate with social workers and counselors to address family, economic or substance abuse problems that may cause a student to play hooky. A condition that a student attend counseling often is added to a contract.
The contracts usually require students to perform community service. At the Cypresswood court, Adams' concept of community service is hardly undemanding: about 20 to 40 hours cleaning school buses.
Parents often are required to take parenting classes.
Sent to lockup By signing the contract, students admit that they were criminally truant and parents admit that they contributed to their child's non-attendance. But the charges are dismissed if the child and parents fulfill the contract's conditions.
Judges can be tough on those who do not comply with contracts. Students who continue to skip school are brought into court on contempt charges. Brought in a second time, some judges send them to lockups.
In February, a 17-year-old girl from Spring High was brought into court after missing school 26 times, Assistant District Attorney Michael Moore said. She signed a contract saying she would not miss school during the next six months, but skipped school 38 more times.
At a recent hearing in Cypresswood, Adams found her in contempt of court for failing to live up to the contract.
He fined her $505. When she said she didn't have the money, she was handcuffed and taken to adult jail as other youths looked on.
Her mother, in court on a contempt charge for failing to see that her daughter abided by the contract, also was fined $505.
"Isn't this about the most ridiculous thing you have heard — we have to put your child in jail for failure to go to school?" Adams said.
Those under age 17 are sent to the county juvenile detention center — the fate of 40 youths so far this year, Hawkins said.
When youths age 17 and 18 are found in contempt and cannot pay the $500 fines often imposed on them, they are sent to the county jails for adults for a day or two. No statistics were available on how many were sent to adult jails.
The district attorney's office has decided to be tough on truancy because it is a "gateway" activity that can lead to drug use, minor crimes and, ultimately, more serious crimes, Hawkins said.
Adams said he supports the program because youths who don't finish high school face diminished prospects.
Other areas are running similar programs. In Forth Worth, a municipal court has been set aside to hear only truancy cases.
The Fort Worth program, like the one in Harris County, emphasizes quick intervention and the potential imposition of fines.
The program has helped push average daily attendance in the Forth Worth Independent School District, which serves about 80,000 students, from 93.8 percent in 2002-2003 to 94.9 percent this school year, said Delena Doyle, the district's assistant director of student affairs.
Affects bottom line Such an increase means more money in a school district's coffers. State aid to schools is based in part on average daily attendance. Fort Worth's 1 percent increase in average daily attendance brought $4 million more to the district this year, Doyle said.
In Harris County, the ability of the district attorney's program to increase state aid hasn't gone unnoticed by some local school districts, said Moore, one of two prosecutors assigned to the program.
"The school districts talk a lot about the average daily attendance money," he said.
bill.murphy@chron.com
HEEHEE. Cool. I only speak 2 languages. I will amen to the reading. Not enough of it being done by people nowadays.
Which two?
I will amen to the reading
That should have the word "say" in there.
Tough call.
As a kid growing up in Indianapolis, I spent a lot of May days sitting down at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. My folks called up the school, told the administration that I'd be at the track, and off I went. Of course, I went to a private school, so it's a little different, but things turned out fine.
But there are also the kids that can't afford to be missing days. I mean, there are some dumb folks out there that ought to be proficient in some basic skills so they aren't just sitting around collecting welfare. If we're going to have social programs, and I'm not saying that we should, the state has an interest in making sure that kids are educated to at least a certain level. Tough call here.
English and pig latin. Actually, Korean, though I don't get a chance to practice too often so I'm a little rusty and not good enough to be a translator.
Korean WAS one of my languages - lived in Etaewon, Ja'un J'taek, Yangsan-gu as a kid. That was a LONG time ago. ;)
Kamsahamnida.
Korean WAS one of my languages - lived in Etaewon, Ja'un J'taek, Yangsan-gu as a kid. That was a LONG time ago. ;)
Kamsahamnida
Chanmaneyo. :) Chega--onulun korang-ne katgo--iseyo. :)
Actually, sometimes I insert some Spanish in there once in a while as I did take high school Spanish. I used to be pretty good at Spanish, but have lost a lot of it because I get it too mixed up with Korean and little opportunity to speak it around here, not to mention no time to study it.
And BTW, the Japenese word for bed-and-breakfast means something ENTIRELY different in Chosan.
Hehe. Actually, korang-ne means stinky feet. With those people from Cheju-do, you can't even understand their Korean accent. I actually learned how to count to 10 in German before I did in English. My dad was in the service over there.
That is just ridiculous!
When I was coming up, I was allowed to miss school only if fever or contagion risk were involved. NO exceptions.
Man, do I ever miss teaching.
Am considering going for alternative certification so I can teach high school English.
That is just ridiculous!
When I was coming up, I was allowed to miss school only if fever or contagion risk were involved. NO exceptions.
That is exactly the only times I was allowed to miss too. I tried to make myself sick one year (8th grade), but my mom said, "You're going and that's final." In 9 years of teaching, I've missed an average of about 1 day a year and no sick days. Most have been due to either a class, funeral, or family reunion. Mom said, "You need to take off two days to come to the family reunion this year." I said, "Yes, ma'sm. I will miss one day this year due to my brother getting married too.
Holy cats! Remind me not to get on your bad side.
In Fort Bend, southwest of Houston, if I was absent from first period, the school called my dad, and if they couldn't find him they'd call my mother (who worked at another school in my district) and interrupt her class to find out where I was.
If I'd ever been present in first period but absent in second, and the office had no record of me signing out for a doctor appointment, the parents got called. (That never happened.)
And whatever my parent said I was home with had to be in the note I had to bring back next day. If Dad said I was home with the flu, my note from him or Mom had to say, "Xena missed yesterday because she had flu."
Fort Bend was serious about truancy.
Man, do I ever miss teaching.
Am considering going for alternative certification so I can teach high school English
You seem like a good cantidate for it. I think I'll stay in first grade for a while.
Almost no one says "Holy cat(s)!" I love that expression and use it as often as I can.
When I did teach (freshman and sophomore English at the University of Houston), I had the reputation of being VERY tough and VERY helpful. I kept about three times as many office hours as required, and about twice as many as most of the teaching fellows. I gave the students my home phone number, and they could call me with questions about any assignment just about any time (within reasonable limits).
I also firmly believed (and still do) that if my students didn't get two good laughs out of each class, they didn't learn anything that day.
The students often started by feeling like they were stuck taking my classes . . . which they were, since I only taught core . . . but by semester's end, they'd ask me if I knew which time slot I'd have next semester so they could try to get me again.
Hoo boy, but I was tough. And fun.
Whoops. Not my best topic.
See my profile. And remember, I flunked.
Your philosophy and mine are the same. I believe in being firm, but fair, flexible and funny too. Some parent told me that I would never make it in administration because I'm too much like a big kid. She's right.
I don't take myself too seriously and the kids don't either (except when it comes to the 3 r's that is).
Almost no one says "Holy cat(s)!" I love that expression and use it as often as I can.
There's a guy around here who says it a lot. PLUS I've been wathching old Superfriends shows with Batman and Robin in them. I never knew that Casey Kasem was the voice of Robin before.
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