Truancy: Causes, Effects, and Solutions
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Truancy Causes Effects and Solutions (1)
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Conclusion
Attendance is far too low a priority on school development and school improvement plans, but all evidence suggests that as a student’s attendance improves, so does his corresponding academic performance (Reid, 2006). Moreover, erratic attendance can lead to maladjustment, poor academic performance, school dropout, substance abuse, delinquency, and teenage pregnancy in the short term, and violence, marital instability, job instability, adult criminality, and incarceration in the long term. The direct costs of incarceration exceed $20,000 per prisoner per year in the United States (Spelman, 2009) and the same nation’s dropout population costs the country approximately $260 billion in lost earnings and forgone taxes each year (Byer and Khun, 2007). For these reasons alone, truancy within American schools needs to be eliminated for the betterment of the country. Teachers at the sampled school understand this, and are open to using some of their planning time to decrease student truancy if a truancy reduction program were initiated. Since no other schools in the district are initiating any programs, why don’t we initiate a pilot program? What do we have to lose? Maybe somewhat less significant, but of some value, is that if an attendance program is initiated and well documented, as this program would be, then there would be sufficient evidence to prove to the state that proactive measures have been taken in an effort to decrease, or eliminate the erratic attendance. The overarching goal of CCMSBS would be to proactively Truancy: Causes, Effects, and Solutions 30 provide supports to students before they reach the next stage, thereby allowing no child to slip through the cracks, or to be left behind. |
