Some kids are just lazy.
They don’t care.
They must have bad parents.
The stigma attached to truants and dropouts is highly generalized, misinformed and many times simply wrong. Lynnette C. Anderson of the Women’s Christian Alliance, who has been working as the organization’s manager of the truancy department since September, said the problem goes much deeper.
“It’s not an apathy issue, it’s a socioeconomic issue.”
Many truancy cases live with families below the poverty level and need to work. “Sometimes it comes down to choosing to eat or go to school,” Anderson said.
Other times, the child may need to stay home to care for siblings, parents or other family members. Anderson said the WCA has been working with a 15-year-old who accumulated an excessive amount of absences because she was staying home to take care of her mother, who had breast cancer. Around January 2010, she was able to turn her life around and start attending school again. She will soon be employed with WCA’s six-week summer program, the Freedom School.
Medical-related reasons also contribute to student truancy, Anderson said. Sicknesses like asthma, fibromyalgia—even sickle cell anemia and lupus—keep students home-bound for extended periods of time. At that point, WCA coordinates needs with school nurses and counselors to make arrangements for the student. “We have a home-school process allowed, where we send a teacher right to their home,” Anderson said.
Anderson worked with truant youth for two year prior to joining WCA, located on Cecil B. Moore Avenue near 17th Street. Her department consists of seven case managers and administrative assistants, who conduct both home and school visits. The department receives attendance lists from schools, which enables case managers to figure out which students are having trouble with attendance and should be contacted.
Contractually, the organization must serve 868 cases each year, but the number ends up being closer to 900. It covers a group of 10 institutions, including both elementary and high schools.
“We enforce the Compulsory Education Law,” Anderson said. “To not allow a student to get an education is a form of neglect.” The law mandates that children 8-17-years-old attend school, with some exceptions. Parents can incur fines and jail time for violating the law.
Poor school attendance and failure to graduate often go hand-in-hand. According to the American Bar Association’s Commission on Youth at Risk, excessive truancy can lead to dropping out of school. Philadelphia’s graduation rate from 2004-2005 was 62 percent, which sounds low, but according to “Cities in Crisis 2009: Closing the Graduation Gap,” the number is up 23 percentage points from the previous decade.
But is traditional high school for everyone? Anderson said children should be able to learn in the environment most conducive to the betterment of their lives rather than expecting all individuals to thrive under the same conditions. In response to a growing need for alternatives, WCA adopted multiple programs this past fiscal year.
“Children don’t have to be penalized for not staying in public school. They’re dealing with the consequences of social and economic factors,” Anderson said.
For those better suited to a home setting, WCA allows for an online education option. Another alternative is the Job Corps, a network of places where students can learn a trade and simultaneously earn a high school diploma. Upon completion, they receive assistance finding a job. Still another option is to attend one of Philadelphia’s five E3 Power Centers…with the three E’s standing for: empowerment; education and employment.
Anderson said she found that many students 17-19 years old who have not graduated yet drop out because they have outgrown the public school atmosphere. “They’re with kids who are just out of junior high,” she said. “There’s a big maturity difference.”
While Anderson works more directly with case managers and families, Connie Hatchett, Director of Youth and Community Services for the past 13-years, acts as an overseer by making sure clients are seen in a timely manner and that they act in compliance with the Department of Human Services.
“Truancy is simply symbolic of what’s going on in the family. It’s not always what you see,” Hatchett said.
Some parents leave for work before their children leave for school, so helping them get to class may be as uncomplicated as finding a neighbor to make sure they are awake and ready to go on time. Children may live in one part of the city but attend school in another and cannot afford subway tokens. Uniform requirements can also be a burden on a family. WCA sometimes spends its own funds to buy students uniforms at low-cost stores or helps families obtain clothing vouchers so they can purchase uniforms on their own.
“The key is to build relationships, even if it’s short-term,” Hatchett said. “I raised five kids. Everybody needs help at some point.”
She emphasized that children need a reason to attend school. Activities that make them feel more welcome and included draw students in and pique their interest. Looking forward to a school-related activity at least gets the students in the building, because they cannot learn if they do not come.
“A lot of youth-driven programs attract other youth,” she said. “Also, more surveys need to be done of what the students would like, and then design programs based on that.”
WCA Chief Executive Director Wanda Mial agreed that feeling involved in school coincides with attendance. “If not, students feel alienated. They have no incentives to remain connected,” she said. The period of highest risk for students is during seventh and eighth grades, because by ninth grade, many youth have started making decisions for themselves and have already found an alternative to school.
One of the obstacles facing WCA is the vast array of school and community systems within the city. “It’s very difficult to do an individual service plan,” she said. “The nice part of being a neighborhood organization is that it enables us to try to create a multifaceted plan for a family.”
Usually, the organization resolves truancy issues within 90 days, but sometimes additional assistance is recommended. Another challenge for the truancy department is that families do not always take the advice, making it difficult for case managers to follow their progress, Mial said.
WCA’s main defense against truancy and dropping out is communication. The organization works closely with schools, courts, the Department of Human Services and other entities to gather every resource they can and make it available for youth and their families. “I used to be deputy commissioner at DHS, and it’s similar,” Mial said. “It’s how we translate what we see and hear to progression in design and policy.”
For Lynnette Anderson, the most rewarding part of working in the organization’s truancy department is helping families begin their process of change by showing them how to navigate the system to create opportunities for themselves. “Sometimes they’re so disenfranchised, they think there’s not help for them, that they can’t get help,” she said.
Anderson’s message: the children are not always at fault when it comes to truancy and dropping out.
“If I had a wish list, it would be more rights for children. Some of the social ills children are imparted with are simply because they’re children and are dependent.”
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