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Truancy at 10-year high in Kane County

And there's no money to address Kane County problem

Truancy in Kane County schools is the highest it's been in a decade. But there is far less help to get students back in class than there was 10 years ago.

Kane County saw 1,773 students reported to the Kane County Regional Office of Education for truancy in the 2009-10 school year. School population growth fueled that number somewhat, but in raw totals, 1,773 truant students is the highest total in Kane County since the 2000-01 school year. That year saw a nearly identical total of 1,779 truant students. What isn't identical is what's being done to stop truancy.

Illinois law requires all students to begin school by age 7 and attend school every school day until age 17, when they can legally drop out if they choose. Students were required to attend school only until age 16 until a law change on Jan. 1, 2005. A student between ages 7 and 17 is considered truant if absent from school without a valid excuse. Eighteen or more days of absence without a valid excuse is considered chronic truancy.

Limited help

When a local school's attempts to contact parents about a student's absence fails to correct the situation, that's when Pat Dal Santo from the Kane County Regional Office of Education and her team of truancy officers take over.

The officers may meet with parents and the student at the child's school, go to their home to investigate why a student isn't at school, and even refer a family to social services for counseling or other help to resolve the problem. If that fails, a student or family may end up dealing with the local state's attorney for legal consequences, though such an end result is rare. But the 2009-10 school year saw a dramatic decrease in all those forms of intervention despite a return to the decade's high watermark for truancy.

Truant officers' visits to homes, contacts with students and connecting truant students to local social services for help all occurred at least 65 percent less frequently in 2009-10 than they did in 2000-01. Even truant officer visits to schools, one of the first lines of intervention the regional office of education gets involved in, were down 18 percent from a decade ago.

The withdrawal of truancy assistance is directly related to what is effectively a near-total evaporation of state funding to stop truancy, according to Dal Santo. She said she expects a funding cut of up to 30 percent this year, which follows a funding cut last year that forced her to reduce the number of truancy officers. With full funding of about $350,000, Dal Santo has eight truancy officers on staff. Right now she has two officers to handle truant students at more than 170 schools. But funding levels mean nothing if the money doesn't actually show up.

“It's insane, Dal Santo said. “Right now I'm looking at zero funding. I know I'm going to get some funding. It's supposed to be coming next week. But half the money from last year still hasn't shown up.

“The impact is we end up with more kids out of school for more days, Dal Santo continued. “Eventually, that ends up increasing the dropout rate. We're able to do some things with federal funding, but those programs have to look different because of the funding requirement.

Perhaps the most striking change is the new approach for helping students who drop out at age 17 and receive their General Equivalency Diploma. Nearly 700 dropouts earned their GED with help and encouragement from the regional office of education from 2000-01 to the 2008-09 school year. Last year, no dropout received any GED help from the regional office of education.

“Funding for that program was eliminated, Dal Santo said. “Now it pretty much has to be for the light to go on in their heads that it's the best thing for them to get their GED or come back to school. In the past we used to help them get their GED and go on to community colleges. Now we can't do that.

History repeats?

History shows the long-term impact of a 17-year-old dropping out will initially result in a much greater likelihood of all that student's younger siblings eventually dropping out as well, Dal Santo said. And if those dropouts go on to have their own children, those kids are much more likely to drop out too.

“Truancy is often a family issue, Dal Santo said. “I've been in situations with families where, to change the culture, we've even got mom hooked into a GED program. If we can't get to the root of the problem, then we're not going to solve the truancy issue.

Elgin Area School District U-46 topped 600 truant students in the 2009-10 school year. Elgin High School Principal Dave Smiley said the loss of truant officers would be a total disaster, especially with students in younger grade levels.

“It has a huge impact, and it's systemic, Smiley said. “A lot of truant students come from homes with very involved issues. These kids certainly need the support of truant officers. If those things are nipped in the bud at the elementary level, then they come here with a little more faith. We want them here, and they need to graduate.

Part of that need for attendance stems from the formula used to dole out state money that depends, in part, on average daily attendance numbers for schools. More truant students equal a lower average daily attendance. That equals less state money for schools.

West Aurora District 129 saw its truancy levels jump by about 80 students when the funding levels for truancy prevention dropped. About one-third of the district's revenue comes from state aid. District officials, however, weren't even aware of funding cuts to truancy prevention.

Spokesman Mike Chapin said district officials do not believe truancy funding cutbacks caused the increase. Staff members said they thought the inability to classify 16-year-olds as dropouts, even though they never come to school, may have inflated their numbers after the 2005 law change. The raw numbers don't support that theory. In the 2008-09 school year, District 129 had 228 truant students. That's fewer truant students than the district had during any other year this decade.

Dal Santo said the law change didn't inflate the number of truant students much. There is a clause in the law that allows 17-year-olds to attend a graduation incentive program rather than regular high school classes. Attendance in that program means the student isn't counted as truant.

Recession hurts

What actually leads students to become truant has changed in the past couple of years thanks to the economic recession, school officials said. It's not unusual for a student to miss school to watch a younger sibling while mom or dad spends another day trying to find a job, Dal Santo said. There are also more homeless families in the area than in recent years, making it difficult for some kids to get to school even if they want to attend. School districts in Kane County served 1,598 homeless students in the 2009-10 school year. That's a 26.8 percent increase from the previous year. Other problems haven't changed. There are still many homes with abuse where a student feels obliged to stay home so he or she can protect siblings, or another parent, Dal Santo said.

“As many truants as there are there, that's how many reasons there are for someone to be truant, Dal Santo said. “It's not like Johnny wants to skip school and go fishing. With some of our kids, I'm surprised they ever even get to school with what they've got going on at home.

Dal Santo said she's keeping her fingers crossed that another big funding cut doesn't come when she receives her grant notices.

“What happens when we don't get funding is we refer more out to local agencies for counseling services, Dal Santo said. “The problem with that is they're all getting less funding, too.