Waianae school absenteeism

[Amati]

The StarAdvertiser has a report about the Court trying to address the high absenteeism at Waianae Intermediate School.

The school, with 913 students in grades 7 and 8, had the highest chronic absenteeism rate last school year among middle schools at 38 percent, reflecting the percentage of students absent 15 days or more. The state average for middle schools was 14 percent that year.

Waianae Intermediate students on average missed 21 school days — amounting to more than four weeks of school — compared with the statewide average of nine absences.

So, they have focused on the problem and stats, and put in place a specialized truancy court. The outcome this year:

A total of 68 students were referred to Truancy Court last year: 40 eighth-graders and 28 seventh-graders. “The majority had 60 to 90 absences,” Remigio said. Of the 49 truancy petitions the state ended up filing for the group, 31 cases were diverted from court because the students demonstrated improvement. Eighteen of the cases were brought to court, and 16 of those students improved enough during their court visits to have their cases closed.

So far, it sounds like there had been notable success.
One has to wonder just how much the parents are part of the problem for some of those students? If a parent does not become involved and instead allows their child to be chronically truant, maybe there needs to be a special court program for the parents, too.
Anyway, the program seems to be offering a pathway to educational success for some students that might otherwise end up dropping out. That is good!

[cabanalane]

Agree on the reply on parent's involvement. I'm old, back in my days, I recall one boy got into a fight. He was a bigger guy. Tough guy.
Football player. So he was in the Principle's Office. His Father was called and on his way. The Father was a short Japanese man (not that make a difference). The boy ran, and was MIA for a while. He was scared of his Father. The presence of his Father scared the $hit out of him. And he stood about a foot taller.

The point of the story is, there was that respect. That fear. That fear of a parent, and more specific the Father.

Kids today don't have that fear. Most don't have Fathers (not saying Fathers are the only one who discipline). I've seen too many kids today "pushing" around their only parent (Mother). Or now (sad to say) Grandmother, who has to take care of them.

Many kids today do what they want. And think how they want, even if it's wrong. Back then, I think kids may do wrong, but they sort of know what's right.

[Kerry]

It's not the fault of the teachers; they have no choice other than to mirror the integrity of the university's sp-com professors.

Leadership Training has yet to be a requirement for education and health-care majors. "Teachers" have been loosed into the system without having demonstrated an ability to create effective agreements, specifically a student-parent agreement to turn in homework neatly and on time. Through leadership training one discovers what it takes to inspire parents to support their child's teacher—specifically—intention.

Children have no choice other than to mirror the integrity of the adults around him/her. Children misbehave, fail in school, and even get sick to bring to anyone's attention that they are not in-communication with anyone, that the adults around him/her have become stuck doing their imitation of communication.

I'm so very pleased to see posts about such matters.