Truancy, or skipping school, is a significant problem in schools across Texas and throughout the United States. It has also been statistically identified as a warning sign that students may be heading for more troublesome activities and potentially even delinquency. It’s really important for teachers, parents, and administrators to identify these students and put in place strategies to help minimize truancy levels. Having a premium student information system in place in the school is just the first step.
Truancy occurs most in students aged between twelve and eighteen. Perhaps the biggest reason for a student failing to attend school is disengagement. While sickness and one-off family commitments are a valid cause for occasional absence from school or from a particular class, truancy is not.
Disengagement of a student from education occurs for numerous reasons and each student must be managed individually. Early intervention is very important. Schools must work to solve the issue in partnership with parents.
For teachers, engagement of students is crucial for preventing truancy. Negative perceptions of school need to be identified and reformed. Learning needs to occur in a concrete, creative, nurturing and productive way.
How Can You Minimize Truancy?
- Create a positive classroom environment – with hands-on activities, group discussions, and active participation
- Build positive relationships with students and parents
- Discuss truancies with parents or guardians
- Implement incentives for attendance
- Implement options for credit recovery
- Identify students who are struggling early and respond positively to help them
- Identify socialization issues
- Maintain and communicate high expectations of all students
- Be objective with truant students
Don’t:
- Give poor grades based on poor attendance
- Ignore health and safety
- Ignore at-risk behaviors and characteristics
- Give up
- Punish truancy with suspension or expulsion
Additionally, as a parent, you can:
- Take an active interest in your child’s education and school work
- Talk to your child about attendance and truancy
- Volunteer at your child’s school
- Monitor your child’s feelings about school and socialization
- Maintain communication with your child’s school and teachers
- If your child is a habitual truant, consider counseling
- If possible, take your child to school and collect them at the end of the day or establish a carpool
- Encourage recreational interests outside school
- Be supportive if your child is anxious
Chronic and long term truancy needs to be handled by a team including the whole family, offering meaningful incentives for attendance, and collaboration between schools, parents, and others who may include social service providers, mental health workers, and local community law enforcement.
Student absence impacts on their educational development, achievement, and attainments. Some truancy occurs without parental knowledge; other times it happens with parental permission. Either way, it is detrimental to the student.
Student information systems allow schools to continuously monitor patterns of attendance and absence, and this helps identify disengaged students and take action to minimize truancy. This is ultimately for the benefit of the student.
