Dr. Rebecca Good is a recently retired educator who has been a teacher, principal, central staff executive director, and school superintendent in the Dallas area. She is also a nationally sought-after educational expert, who is often heard on podcasts, TV, and radio stations across the country talking about the latest hot education topics. She has done weekly podcasts on the practice, pedagogy, and politics in public education for several years. She has also published books on education and wellness.
Even if you are not in the public education business you are probably aware that school tend to be underfunded. What is often not understood by even some educators is how districts can go about increasing their funding using the students currently on their campuses.
The simple solution is to make sure more students come to school on time every day. When students come to school on time every day it equals more funding. Let me explain.
I have worked as a school and district administrator in both large public school and charter districts. I learned that the bigger the district, the less chance school personnel have in understanding school finance. In large school districts, for example, principals get little choice in how much money they will receive for the following school year.
A charter school on the other hand, because they tend to be given less money than public schools, must keep their eye on every penny, and must have their personnel wear several hats. They are better at helping their staffs understand how schools are funded.
And it all boils down to this: if a student is in his or her classroom seat by the magic attendance hour (usually 10 AM) then the school gets to count that child as present for the entire day and will get paid for that day/child. If a child comes after 10 AM, the school district will not get paid a dime for the child’s attendance that day.
Due to the lack of training at the school level, attendance is not treated with the sense of urgency it deserves. Yes, you’ll have that urgency from a teacher at an instructional level, but until the urgency also comes from the fiscal level, things won’t change.
I will use examples from the state of Texas, but I do so knowing that most states have the same requirements.
It is also not unusual to have school districts be unaware of the fact that they are under state law to have a truancy prevention program in place to keep students and families out of municipal truancy court. That law is found in Texas Education code 25.0915. More specifically:
Sec. 25.0915. TRUANCY PREVENTION MEASURES. (a) A school district shall adopt truancy prevention measures designed to:
(1) impose:
(A) a behavior improvement plan on the student
(ii) the period for which the plan will be effective, not to exceed 45 school days after the date the contract becomes effective;
(B) school-based community service; or
(2) refer the student to counseling, mediation, mentoring, a teen court program, community-based services, or other in-school or out-of-school services aimed at addressing the student’s truancy.
It uses the word “shall” adopt a truancy prevention program as opposed to the word “may”, which often offers flexibility within a law. It also uses the word “impose”, which is also a very strong word. I will state again, it is unfortunate that many school districts are unaware of this requirement. The support families are supposed to be having to help them get their children to school every day on time, is missing.
For the last three years I have worked as a Truancy Prevention Measures (TPM) magistrate. The company I work for contracts with school districts, trains district and school level personnel in efficient and effective truancy prevention practices and helps them implement it. It does this by not only staying in close contact with the district and school attendance officers and administrators, it also makes available a TPM magistrate such as myself to go in once a month (or more for larger districts) and meet with families who continue to have chronically high unexcused absences and tardies.
Our message to these families is that we are the wall between them and municipal truancy court. If they ignore our support attempts and end up in that court, families face thousands of dollars worth of fines. What is the cure if the family is not able to pay those thousands of dollars in fines? The court’s fix is usually for a parent to spend three days in jail instead.
So, what does that wall look like? It is not unusual, especially the first year that this process is implemented, to have a number of families who continue to be truant. When this happens, those families are assigned to visit the TPM magistrate at a monthly tribunal hearing
The path to a tribunal hearing is a very formal sounding and looking process. Parents get warning calls, then letters, usually at the three unexcused days mark, the eighth day, and the 10th day. The letters sent to parents look like documents that might come from a municipal truancy court. The very legal-looking tribunal summons can be used as an evidence document that helps show the judges in truancy court that the school district has attempted to implement a truancy prevention practice as per law. Municipal truancy court requires a district to have quite a bit of documentation to show that the school has attempted to work with the families to help them better their attendance and tardies before sending them on to them.
After 10 days of unexcused days and tardies, the tribunal summons is sent to the parents. This requires them to come to the school district and sit down with school personnel and a TPM magistrate to explain why a child has so many absences/tardies. Texas law states that even missed parts of days (tardies/early pick ups) can be included in the unexcused days total.
During my monthly tribunal hearings, I sit in the front of the room in a black robe, and after gathering the attendance data from the school representative, I ask the family who sits or stands before me how they have accrued so many unexcused absences and tardies. Depending on their reason/issue, we come up with a solution that the parents commit to following through on.
We meet for at least three months to ascertain that they are working to lower their attendance issues as per the TPM behavior improvement plan created during the tribunal hearing. I also look for opportunities to praise and to celebrate better attendance.
Parents come in with a status of “Truant” and it is our hope that we can get them by the following month or two to be in “Provisional” status. When this process is taken seriously by the school and the families, it is not unusual for us to be able to get a child to the “No Longer Truant” status within a semester.
After three years of working with families, I can vouch that most do want to work with the schools to better their child’s attendance and to stay out of municipal truancy court. That’s why out of the thousands of families that we have worked with, less than one percent end up having to be sent to truancy court. That’s how successful this process is.
The data continue to show that every school that has faithfully implemented this process has had an increase in daily attendance funding. Matter fact, every school that has worked has earned more back in funding than the cost of putting in this process. Another data point that also goes up is in the form of grades. When a child is absent less their grades get better and they learn more.
My challenge to any educator reading this is: how aware are you of your state’s truancy prevention laws? Are they being implemented in your school? It’s time we become better partners with our families to help our children come to school on time every day.