The US Department of Education released a report in June 2016 that revealed more than 6 million children, a full 13% of American students, missed over 15 days of school each during the 2013-2014 academic year. When that many students are missing at least two weeks of school, there is no question that the truancy problem has reached a critical point.
Yet no one seems sure about what the best way is to deal with the problem. Both parents and teachers are concerned, yet both often lack the resources to handle the issue alone. This is partially due to logistics.
Parents can only do so much.
With so many parents working these days, it’s often impossible to even be sure that school age children actually reach their learning institutions. Older kids who take the bus to school have ample opportunity to skip off on their own.
But even parents who are able to drop off their children at school on the way to work have no way of knowing the kids will actually stay. Even walking a child directly to a teacher or school administrator every morning is no guarantee that they will stay the entire day.
Schools are not prisons.
No one wants to start enforcing criminal level security around our country’s schools. That is not an environment in which we wish to have our children spend hours every day, nor is it conducive to learning. Additionally, a great many truancy problems concern children who never make it to school in the first place.
Teachers and school administrators can’t be responsible for students until they actually show up for school. Unfortunately, many parents go off to work under the impression that their kids are already at school and don’t find out that isn’t the case until the absences start adding up.
School Information Systems
The solution to this crucial truancy problem is not found by blaming either parents or schools. Instead, the solution almost certainly lies in both working together for the best interest of the student.
A good school information system can be an enormous help in this situation. Not only does it enable parents to check in real time whether their children are in school when they are supposed to be, but it allows schools to create truancy reports which offer accurate and up-to-date data.
When parents, teachers and school administrators have the right resources, everyone benefits. Especially the students.
