The D.C. Council’s committee on school safety and truancy found in a report released Thursday that domestic problems and safety concerns both during commutes and at school cause truancy. The closing of some area schools has led to longer, more complicated commutes for the 20,000 who use Metro to get to school, Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn said. Students now cross paths with rivals, leading to theft, violence and hostility, so they often choose to skip school rather than deal with the unsafe daily transit.
Schools have staggered their start and end times to combat the problem, but students continue to have problems in commuting safely, if they are able to afford to the commute at all.
While the city subsidizes most of D.C. students’ rides on Metro, the committee recommended that the city pick up the entire tab
for students below the poverty line — but it is uncertain if the cash-strapped city can afford such a measure.
D.C. Public Schools also is pushing to end the mental health and family abuse problems that cause truancy, but need funds to push forth recommendations.
The city’s Families Together Amendment Act was signed last year but sits stagnant because it can’t get the $750,000 it needs over four years to implement a program to target truancy. If funded, the service would help deal with investigations of domestic abuse.
“This goes straight to the cause of truancy and gives the D.C. government the tools to fix and solve the root cause,” said Judith Sandalow, executive director of the Children’s Law Center, a Washington advocacy organization.
But that is just a drop in the bucket compared with $3 million in proposed cuts to the Department of Mental Health and $2.5 million from the Child and Family Services Agency — funds that are critical to stopping truancy, Sandalow said.
On average, a high school dropout will cost taxpayers in his lifetime $292,000 in lower tax revenues, public assistance benefits, and imposed incarceration costs relative to a high school graduate.
“We need to think about some of the other challenges created by truancy,” said committee Chairman Sekou Biddle, D-at large. “We may already be funding the intervention of truancy problems, so let’s move those funds to address the problem on the front end.”
