In an effort to keep students coming back to school this fall, the Prince George’s County Public School system is relying on informational posters as well as student-signed code of conduct statements to combat truancy.
John White, a spokesman for the school system, the second largest in Maryland, said the district does not keep truancy statistics but acknowledges students skipping school remains a problem.
“Of course, it’s always an issue that we’re in conversations, not only with community people, but with local judges, local law enforcement, teachers,” White said.
Several programs, ranging from in-school suspensions to community-based initiatives as well as expanded academic offerings, are planned to address the truancy problem, White said. Cutting down on the number of chronically missing students has also become a frequently cited campaign issue for Prince George’s candidates at both the county and state level who say they want to fight crime where it starts. The school system hopes to have a computer-based student tracking system in place, White said, which will make contacting parents much easier. White said the schools have started to modify how they discipline students, seeing out-of-school suspensions as contributing to truancy issues.
“It’s helping students out of school,” White said, “which is not beneficial.”
During the past three school years, the county school system has doubled the amount of in-school suspensions it issues, with almost 1,100 in-school suspensions served in 2005-06. There is also an idea afoot in conjunction withthe business community, White said, to have businesses deny service to students who should be in school.
“The first response” at businesses, White said, “should be what school do you go to and what class should you be in.”
D.C. also has plans to make advanced placement courses more widely available in its schools, White said, with qualified teachers helping students learn and earn credit for college.
“Truancy can also be the side effect of a child who is not interested and engaged in school,” White said.
