Not Present or Accounted For: The Attendance Crisis in Baltimore Schools“Not Present or Accounted For": Part 2
The following is a transcript of Part 2 of the radio series “Not Present or Accounted For: The Attendance Crisis in Baltimore Schools,” which was supported by a grant from the Open Society Institute-Baltimore.
There were 7,191 students habitually truant in Baltimore schools last year. It’s an alarming figure that leads the state in unexcused school absences and has entrenched local education officials and community leaders in a battle to turn the problem around. But not everyone is on the same page. In the second installment of WEAA’s documentary, “Not Present or Accounted For: The Attendance Crisis in Baltimore Schools,” reporter Melody Simmons highlights some dichotomies.
In the office of truancy and school attendance at school headquarters, the phone bank is working overtime. During the first week of school, a staff of 20 is making more than 7,000 calls to city residents. They repeat one question with each new dial tone: Is your child in school?
The calls are one way administrators at North Avenue are hoping to reverse the crisis of truancy in Baltimore’s schools. With phone calls and personal visits, they hope to deliver aggressive interventions. The first salvo was fired Aug. 7, in the form of a letter from Baltimore City State’s Attorney Patricia Jessamy to parents and guardians of close to 72-hundred habitual truants. “It is your legal responsibility” to attend school regularly, the letter warns. Failure to do so could lead to a fine of 50 dollars and/or 10 days in jail for each day of unlawful absence. It’s too early to know if that tactic will work. Neither Jessamy, nor anyone in her office, would talk about it for this series.
But schools CEO Andres Alonso said the problem is much wider than simply leveling threats at families.
“It’s clearly a challenge that we need to address.”
The CEO said step one is simply examining how daily attendance is recorded. At present, that is a flawed system because of inconsistencies between schools. Attendance taking is one thing targeted by Alonso for overhaul beginning early next year. Planned changes include a new, computerized roll call program for homeroom teachers. Then, attendance figures could be email to the central office within seconds. But for now, there are often errors. Alonso addressed the challenge.
“Attendance is about data entry and about decisions that are being made at the schools in terms of how do they capture who’s there. So there is a problem in terms of accuracy of the data.”
Another push at headquarters is centered on a different kind of data gathering and student triage. It involves partnerships with city and state agencies like the Department of Social Services and the Juvenile Justice Center to attack the problem of habitual truancy from a more personal angle. The focus is aimed at struggling teens in middle and high school, many which are on the brink of dropping out at the state’s legal age of 16.
“Eighth and ninth grades seems to be where we’re having the largest percentage of our students start to miss time.”
That’s Dr. Tina Spears, head of the office of truancy and attendance at North Avenue. Her office is using a wide range of data gathering to work up student profiles to target the school attendance crisis.
“You may see a pattern in the eighth grade, but when they get to the ninth grade, I’m not sure it’s because they have less supervision or they are feeling themselves to be a little grown. But that’s where the age limit is in ninth grade, where it’s the highest percentage of truancy in city schools.”
Taking a scientific approach to a very real, human problem is a complex endeavor. Dr. Spears explained many who have racked up dozens of unexcused absences each year also post high academic achievements when they are in school.
“When we look at their record, many have good academic abilities and skills, but for whatever reason they are not challenging themselves, or they are not being challenged in schools, so what I’m finding is they are staying out because the streets are consuming them with other things to do. We have students on the corner using drug activities and they are extremely bright and doing well in school, but they chose another path, they are becoming disengaged and choose the streets.”
Out in the city’s neighborhoods, the approach is very different. Locating these students and helping them stay in the classroom is what Union Square’s Dante Wilson does best. The 31-year-old former teacher and community activist doesn’t need spread sheets or data. He’s using a grassroots program called Reclaiming Our Children to squash the culture of hooking school among city teens.
During homework activities at a community center on West Baltimore Street, Wilson explained his method. He has recruited and trained a team of ex-drug dealers and felons and charged them to reach out as mentors to troubled teens. They have street cred, he said. And that makes a difference.
“Because they may have been those people breaking the laws and things to that nature, they are already known by the community, and unfortunately, they are looked up to by the community. And then to look at the flip side of the coin, if I was to take social worker who just had book knowledge and theory when you go into these urban communities, they are afraid to go inside, which means that our services won’t be at its best.”
It’s an unorthodox approach to a raging problem in Baltimore. And so far, Wilson says he has recorded dozens of success stories, some we’ll highlight in our report next week.
I’m Melody Simmons, reporting in Union Square.
