Monday, June 21, 1999

Budget cuts ax truancy court funds

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Area schools defend system's effectiveness

BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Hamilton County Juvenile Magistrate Carl Guenthner, right, presides over Truancy Court. (Saed Hindash photo) | ZOOM |

        Wide-eyed and distracted, the sixth-grader sits silently before Hamilton County Juvenile Magistrate Carla Guenthner.

        “Twelve unexcused absences, and 29 tardies,” Ms. Guenthner notes. “What's the problem?”

        Stomach aches and bad winter weather, the youngster's mother says.

        The late starts? Teachers don't mark her in when she's there and she dawdles too long, her mother says.

        Ms. Guenthner stops her, asking the girl for an explanation.

        Her little brothers make her late, the girl says. She has to get them up and ready each morning, but they're slow to wake and walk too slowly to school, she says.

        Ms. Guenthner nods and turns back to Mom. She orders the woman to wake up early with her three children, walk them to school daily, meet with their teachers and report next month on her progress.

        This is Truancy Court, a partnership between the juvenile court system and Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) aimed at raising attendance rates.

        Offered in five elementaries, the 10-year-old program was targeted for budget cuts when officials decided to trim $20 million from school budgets instead of seeking a tax increase this month.

        When Superintendent Steven Adamowski in March proposed cutting the $200,000 spent on truancy court, he argued that attendance isn't any better at schools with truancy court.

        Wrong, said principals and teachers at schools with truancy court — Gamble, Oyler, Rothenberg, Vine and Whittier. They said it has boosted attendance and linked needy families with social services that address problems that keep kids out of school.

        In a district plagued by parental apathy, the program gets parents in the schools, they said, scrambling for funding to continue the program.

        Battling truancy also is key to preventing later ills, Juvenile Court Administrator Jim Ray said; chronic absenteeism is the most powerful predictor of delinquency and truant students more often are involved in drugs, alcohol and violence than their peers.

        “We help parents be responsible for the education of their kids,” said Donna Mire, a social worker at Vine who helps run the program.

        The court spends more than $100,000 on magistrates and case managers it sends to schools, Mr. Ray said. Other groups, including the Breeden/Curtis Foundation, Bigg's and Family and Children First,also contribute.

        The program once operated in middle schools but organizers concluded that bad attendance habits form early and they moved it into elementaries, Mr. Ray said.

        Parents of chronically absent or tardy children can be charged with failure to send their child to school. Students old enough to form intent — usually sixth-graders and older — face truancy charges.

        Offenders face fines and court costs, community service, probation, parenting, substance-abuse or behavior-management classes and continued court evaluations.

        Child offenders also face juvenile detention, house arrest or court orders to stay away from peers who are bad influences.

        For offenders who blame their tardiness on sleep, magistrates can order a bedtime and they often hand out alarm clocks.

        “The toughest part is identifying the reason they don't come to school,” said Magistrate Guenthner, who runs her court on Tuesdays in an old science lab at Gamble School in Westwood. “Once you determine that, you know how to help them.”

        Since the program started at elementary schools, attendance has risen 3.4 percent at Vine; 1.1 at Rothenberg; 3.1 at Whittier; 5.1 at Oyler; and 7.4 at Gamble, according to court data.

        Some schools, such as Vine and Whittier, will cut some textbook spending to support the court. Vine also will use $55,000 from a $72,000 grant to pay the full-time social worker and part-time clerk the program demands, Principal Greg Hook said.

        Oyler is applying for a three-year federal “Safe Schools” grant to continue the court program.

        When Roosevelt School in South Fairmount closes this summer under the district's redesign plan, about 300 of its students will go to Oyler, raising the Price Hill school's enrollment to more than 700.

        “We certainly cannot afford to not offer (the court), especially with our school enlarging,” Principal Don Bearghman said. “We worked hard to get our student attendance up to about 93 percent. I anticipate that dropping significantly without the benefit of a visiting teacher.”

        Visiting teachers, typically social workers, handle truancy cases.

        Mr. Ray hopes district officials will reconsider their decision to cut truancy court. He questioned a central office decision to open a “Back-on-Track” program for overage students at Bloom this fall, saying truancy is the biggest reason students fall behind.

        “It seems like they'd rather do intervention than prevention, and I don't understand that,” Mr. Ray said. “This is the right thing to do, and it's a matter of making it a priority. This court is doing that. But there needs to be a "corporate commitment,' so to speak, from the district.”

        School district lawyer John Concannon said if the district could keep the program, it would. “Truancy court was taken out of the budget, along with a lot of other good things that we aren't particularly happy to see cut.”

        If schools want to continue the court, they should use their individual budgets, he added. Schools receive $3,830 per pupil in base funding; special education, poverty, expensive academic programs and other items mean more money.

       

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