Nearly 10 percent of Montgomery County high school students are chronic class cutters, with thousands more skipping in the elementary and middle grades.
Almost 1,000 students in the county were labeled “habitual truants,” defined as absent without an excuse at least one day per week, on average. About 9,000 students were labeled “chronically absent,” meaning absent at least 20 days without an accepted excuse.
The statistics were part of a truancy report released Tuesday by the county government’s Office of Legislative Oversight. It commended the school system for reducing its numbers since 2006, but remained concerned about the system’s ability to address students most at risk of drifting further and further from the classroom, and eventually dropping out altogether.
Montgomery County Public Schools’ “overall use of data to identify students at greatest risk falls short of best practices because MCPS does not use either behavior or achievement data to identify students at greatest risk,” the report said.
Montgomery County high schools with the highest percentage of chronic absentees (2008):
Northwood: 19%
Watkins Mill: 16%
Wheaton: 14%
Richard Montgomery: 14%
Gaithersburg: 14%
Since 2006, habitual truancy has declined by about 5 percent, while the lesser offense of chronic absenteeism has declined by about 17 percent.
Frieda Lacey, Montgomery’s deputy superintendent of schools, said “there is much to celebrate” in the declines. And she argued that the system does use behavior and achievement as a factor, but it is accounted for by the schools themselves, not the central office.
“There are multiple concentrated MCPS efforts that address … suspensions, [extracurricular] ineligibility, loss of credit, grade retention and dropouts,” Lacey said.
The report also focused on efforts outside the school system to address truancy, including the juvenile justice system.
Though parents legally are responsible for students’ truancy, Montgomery courts have become involved in 1 percent of possible cases, according to the report.
Of about 5,000 habitual truants since 2005, the state’s attorney’s office has prosecuted 55 parents and guardians. Barbara Babb, director of the Center for Families, Children and the Courts at the University of Baltimore School of Law, leads a truancy-prevention program recently introduced in Montgomery’s Neelsville and Francis Scott Key middle schools.
“It’s a very big deal,” Babb said. “Re-engaging children with school leads to a decrease in daytime juvenile crime, [an] increase in academic performance, an increase in graduation rates and improved family engagement with schools — parents who’ve often had no connection.”
