No matter where you fall on the ed reform debate, we can all agree that District children have a funny little habit of not showing up to school.
Nearly 4,000 students were truant from D.C. Public Schools last semester alone, and 13 percent of secondary school students had racked up 15 or more unexcused absences, earning them the school system’s “chronically truant” label.
Our inbox’s latest find is a press release “about David Clarke – admissions director for six private D.C. schools – who takes his fight against truancy straight to students’ front doors in some of D.C.’s toughest neighborhoods.”
No, this isn’t a new season of CSI. But it sort of reads like one:
Clarke, admission director for Specialized Education Services Inc., “isn’t a cop or a truant officer, but for a few years now he has taken his fight against truancy directly to students’ front doors. Behind those doors, Clarke often finds students and their families in crisis causing unexcused absences.”
It’s wonderful what SESI, which serves children with learning, social and language problems, is doing. According to one high school director, they’ve helped students get warm coats, food, Social Security cards and Metro fare. They’ve allowed students to rearrange their schedules to take care of their younger brothers and sisters. They go to front doors, sometimes with a social worker, but often alone. And SESI should absolutely keep doing this. Again — it’s wonderful.
What’s sad about this, though, is it highlights the fact that D.C. Public Schools can’t do this. It’s not that Clarke has conjured up genius solutions that eluded the minds of DCPS officials — it’s that DCPS doesn’t have the money to buy kids coats, it’s that DCPS has too many students to track them all down, it’s that some of these kids are just plain afraid to show up to school. Others cause fights on the Metro.
Even sadder, as Councilman Sekou Biddle said, is that when D.C. kids don’t show up, D.C. kids don’t learn.
