Nearly 25% of MCPS students considered chronically absent

 Nearly 25% of MCPS students considered chronically absent (moco360.media)

Montgomery County Public Schools developing plan to address above average truancy rates

WASHINGTON - As the academic year comes to a close for students in Montgomery County Public Schools, new numbers showing just how many students are skipping class have district leaders concerned. 

A meeting to address the problem has been pushed back to next month as officials try to address an epidemic of cutting schools...

...District-wide, Montgomery County Public Schools are seeing a 26.2% chronic absenteeism rate across the district and the problem reaches across the economic landscape. For example, Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School has a 28.6% absenteeism rate, which is higher than average, while Kennedy High School in Wheaton is at 54.7%...

Montgomery County Public Schools developing plan to address above average truancy rates (fox5dc.com)

Silver Chips: The rise of truancy and chronic absenteeism

The room was slowly filling up as the first-period bell rang. People trickled in, and some pulled out phones while others chatted away about plans for the weekend. There was just one slight problem; the room wasn’t a classroom, portable or band room, but rather one of Blair’s many bathrooms.

If you go to Blair, that probably comes as no surprise. It seems every week or so that the administration tries something new to get students to go to and stay in class. After taking a closer look, this new wave of absenteeism seems to be impacting Blair in unprecedented ways...

The rise of truancy and chronic absenteeism | Silver Chips Online (mbhs.edu)

With More Student Absences, State’s Attorney Says Truancy Prevention Needs Extra Funding

Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy on Monday criticized high numbers of student absences from local schools. He told members of a County Council committee that more funding for truancy prevention could help address the issue.

In 2015-16, the most recent data available, about 18.5% — or 28,000 — of all Montgomery County Public Schools students were chronically absent. That means they missed 15 or more days of school in the academic year, according to school district data.

McCarthy on Monday said he believes 8,000 to 9,000 MCPS students are “habitually truant” each year, meaning they miss at least 18 days per semester for an unexcused reason.

McCarthy pointed to a recent Washington Post article that said at some Montgomery County schools in the 2018-19 school year, more than 40% of students missed 10 to 50 days of classes in a semester.

“I was shocked,” he said. “We’ve changed the grading policy so attendance doesn’t matter and I think that’s crazy. There’s maybe a lack of consistency in the county in regards to a policy about that.”

McCarthy said the county’s truancy prevention program is one of his top priorities when exploring initiatives that could use more funding and expansion.

About 90% of students who participate in the program, which operates at 19 of the county’s 207 public schools, are “black or brown,” McCarthy said...

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/schools/with-more-student-absences-states-attorney-says-truancy-prevention-needs-extra-funding/

In extreme examples, parents could face prosecution for high truancy rates

Gazette: Review board hears cases that didn’t improve through intervention

When the system tries and still can’t get kids to stop missing school, their parents could face criminal charges.
Prosecutors estimate that in the last year, they brought charges against 25 to 30 parents, including a recent case in which a mother was sentenced to a week in jail...

...Aurea Cosme-Torres, whose current address is listed in Hyattsville, is the mother of a girl who attends school in Montgomery County.
Cosme-Torres recently spent a week in jail and must serve a year of supervised probation, after her daughter missed 48 percent of the 2012-13 school year at Piney Branch Elementary in Silver Spring, Zeager said.
In that case, court records show, the school contacted the mother at least 27 times to send her daughter to school and had her appear before a truancy review board three times...

Truancy program at risk as funding bottoms out

Money is running dry for a successful truancy-fighting program in Montgomery County, leaving lawmakers and school officials scouring for other funding and ways to keep kids in school.The Truancy Court Program connects public middle school students with a judge and mentor each week, to figure out why the child is skipping school and put him or her back on track. Francis Scott Key Middle School in Silver Spring and Germantown's Neelsville Middle School began the program in 2010 after a federal grant provided Maryland with $500,000 to roll out the program into four counties over three years.As a result, participating Neelsville students averaged a 59 percent drop in absences and a 75 percent drop in tardy reports in spring 2011, while Key students averaged 44 percent fewer absences and a 33 percent reduction in tardiness.http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/education/2012/03/truancy-program-risk-funding-bottoms-out/422136

Council member calls 43 percent drop in truancy ‘statistically not possible'

Gazette:  Drop in student truancy rate called into question

by Jeanette Der Bedrosian | Staff Writer

When a Montgomery County school official announced a 43 percent drop in student truancy rates at a meeting on gang prevention last month, Councilmember Valerie Ervin (D-Dist. 5) of Silver Spring cried foul.

"All of a sudden, they say their truancy rate dropped something drastic," she said, recalling the meeting. "... It was so large that I said you've got to be kidding me. That just statistically is not possible unless they're trying to scrub the numbers and make it look a lot better."...

continues here.

Here is the County Council's full report on Truancy released in March 2010.  

Thousands of MontCo students chronically cut class | Washington Examiner

Thousands of MontCo students chronically cut class Washington Examiner

...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...

Truancy Not on Weast's Radar

A new report out from the County Council's Office of Legislative Oversight titled, "Truancy in Montgomery County".

1.   Note that the following County report was not transmitted to Superintendent Jerry Weast for review (page 96), and the MCPS response (page 97) did not come from the Superintendent. Is the issue of truancy not on the Superintendent's "to do" list?    

2.    It is worth noting that this report is being released at the same time that MCPS is going to be removing the "loss of credit" sanction from a few high schools in the fall.

The "loss of credit" policy states that if a student has 5 unexcused absences the student loses credit for the class. If the "loss of credit" sanction is removed students will be able to have more unexcused absences and still receive credit for the class. That is, it will be possible for a student to skip classes but still receive a passing grade.

3.    The report recommends "Expand access to career and technology education paths and programs, including the Thomas Edison High School of Technology..." (Page 94). This is an interesting recommendation as some of the highest illegal curricular fees being charged to students are in the Edison program. For example, this year Edison students are being illegally charged $265 to enroll in a Cosmetology class and $62 to enroll in an Auto Body class.

The MCPS Board of Education and Superintendent Weast continue to charge students for access to their constitutionally guaranteed free public education, thereby erecting illegal barriers to an education.

Do our elected leaders think that the failure to provide students with their constitutionally guaranteed free public education promotes or deters from school attendance?

This report talks a lot about "feelings" but makes no mention of the illegal fees that students are being charged to attend Montgomery County Public Schools.

How "welcome" do students "feel" when they have to pay to attend public school classes?

Truancy in Montgomery County, Maryland

Board & Council Lunch caught on video

Watch the MCPS Board of Education and Montgomery County Council's lunch meeting on September 15, 2009 as they discuss:

0:00 Introduction of agenda - MCPS enrollment trends
1:55 Highland Elementary School
3:47 Weast on construction costs, stimulus money, cheapest interest rate on bonds, 34th year as superintendent, cheap construction,
5:56 MCPS' Bruce Crispbell on MCPS enrollment
10:22 Knapp on declining County revenue projections, Weast on why this is the time to build
22:00 Berliner question on White Flint sector plan school issue
26:00 Ervin on census
29:16 Leventhal on MCPS position that Smart Growth impacts school system needs. Does Smart Growth put school construction at risk?
31:00 Floreen "my pay grade is not up to being on Board of Education" and "confusion about who does what"
38:00 Berthiaume if we are going to do "Smart Growth" let's do it in a smart way
39:00 Leventhal on big construction projects for county, do they put school projects at risk?
44:24 Leventhal "...I have nothing but sympathy for the poor oppressed people of North Bethesda. I know how difficult it is when your kid gets to attend WJ..."
46:22 Andrews "what are trends in special education enrollment"
51:00 Weast hours based staffing, better staffing, higher expectations
52:12 Ervin on meeting with Weast and State's Attorney on truancy, as high as 5% of MCPS population is truant on any given school day
54:00 Leventhal on Latino Youth meeting, task force recommendations in about a year

http://vimeo.com/9769114 on Vimeo.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009 - Montgomery County Council and MCPS Board of Education meet for lunch in Council conference room.

Meeting is not televised by either elected body.

Video was obtained by a member of the Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland attending the meeting and filming.

Meetings of these two bodies are open under the Maryland Open Meetings Act unless an exception is invoked under the Act.

Kingsley Wilderness Project prepares to close

Barring a change of heart by the county school system, the Kingsley Wilderness Project, which began as a three-year experiment in preventing juvenile crime, will close in June after 28 years.

‘‘In the initial years, there were people who were against the program,” said Jim O’Connor, director of the program for its first 18 years. ‘‘I argued how much it would cost for incarceration ... That program is cheap when you think about what incarceration would cost.” The program was started with federal and state crime prevention funds with the understanding that if it worked after three years, the county would take responsibility for the program.
‘‘These kids were tested coming and going — the results had to be there and they were,” said Milt Thomas, the project’s work and outdoor education director for its first 26 years.
The county Board of Education voted in February to close the Kingsley Wilderness Project, despite pleas from parents, alumni and the community to keep the Boyds school open.
‘‘It’s sad, I’m really sad,” Cathy Jewell, site coordinator, said at the time. ‘‘It seems like we have a tremendous resource that we’re going to just let go ... It doesn’t make sense. We spent all this time and put all this effort in — I don’t get it.”
School Superintendent Jerry D. Weast recommended closing the program and sending students to the county’s other two alternative programs or back to their home schools. He based his recommendation on declining enrollment and poor performance on tests.
‘‘When I think they’re just letting this go for a couple of bucks — they think they’re saving money on — it just galls me,” O’Connor said.
Kingsley opened in 1978 with nine students, some of whom were hardest to reach in the county, O’Connor said.
In the early years, the program accepted any student who thought he or she might benefit from it. More than 75 percent had coded learning disabilities, many with more than one disability, O’Connor said.
They also had behavioral problems and many admitted to drug use, O’Connor said.
‘‘These kids were damaged seriously in terms of feeling comfortable at regular school and were acting out,” O’Connor said.
He decided not to put academics first since the students were participating in Kingsley because they had been defeated by academics.
‘‘Kids like that, the first thing that’s needed is healing,” O’Connor said. ‘‘Once that’s done they will take an interest in academics.”
Some entered the program with the reading skills of a second-grader, Thomas said. At the end of the year they might read at a third grade level or better.
To expect Kingsley to bring those students up to grade level within a few months is unreasonable, he said. Failing to meet state testing standards that are required for high school graduation is one reason cited for closing Kingsley.
‘‘We started with finding ways to get them through a day where they were feeling better and better about themselves, then they would ask for the academics,” O’Connor said.
That’s where Thomas came in.
From the beginning, physical labor and outdoor adventures such as skiing, white water rafting and backpacking became an important component of the program. The outdoor trips were intended to encourage activities students could enjoy throughout their lives. The activities were intended to build self-esteem.
‘‘When those kids hiked up a mountain, they may be complaining on the way up, but when they got home they were proud of themselves,” Thomas said.
Several graduates have made careers as rock climbers, skateboarders and cyclists.
The school was initially located near Little Bennett Regional Park in Clarksburg, in an old house and adjacent buildings on the Moneysworth Farm. The plan was for the students to develop the undeveloped park.
Although work was a key component of the Kingsley proposal, somehow no one had budgeted money for tools that first year, Thomas said.
They borrowed tools from the park, chopped up the dead trees on the farm and sold the firewood. Chopping firewood has remained a popular Kingsley activity and continues to provide money for Kingsley tools and activities. Students earn a small salary for their work.
The first year Kingsley students cleared ballfields in the park. The second year they built tent pads at campsites, built a bridge and cleared trails.
When Black Hill Regional Park opened, Kingsley students cleaned up the area around Little Seneca Lake, planted flower gardens, laid sod and built bridges, Thomas said.
They continue to do trail maintenance at both parks, he said.
The program changed every year according to the needs of its students, O’Connor said.
Until four years ago, Kingsley staff interviewed students who wanted to be admitted to the program and made admissions decisions. The school always had at least 25 on a waiting list, Thomas said. The school can handle 27 students.
Four year ago, the county school system central office took over the admission process and enrollment began dropping.
‘‘In the 18 years I was there, there was no issue of closing it,” O’Connor said.
This year the school has 16 students.
‘‘Out of the hundreds of kids that went there I can only recall one kid who ended up incarcerated,” O’Connor said.
Last year, that former student returned to the school with his wife and mother and talked to the students about his life and the opportunity they had, Thomas said.
‘‘We were phenomenal at taking kids that would have fallen through the cracks and ended up with big success,” O’Connor said.

 http://www.gazette.net/stories/050907/germnew214601_32334.shtml