Truancy board under review
Last-ditch effort to get students back to school
EDMONTON It’s a taxpayer-funded board many Albertans have never heard of, with 115 members on its roster.
Alberta’s attendance board, a last resort for schools dealing with nearly 1,000 chronically truant students a year, is now under review as the provincial government asks whether hearings and court orders are the best way to deal with kids who don’t go to school.
“The way we use it, I find it extremely relevant. I would hate to lose it,” said Karen Penney, deputy superintendent and the attendance officer for the Peace River School Division.
Created in 1988, the attendance board strikes panels to hear cases when a school’s efforts fail to get a kid back to class. Unlike schools, the board has the power to issue court orders compelling parents to bring their child to school, try home schooling or get other help such as medical or counselling services. Though it rarely uses it, the board has the power to fine parents.
Of 12,500 families called before a three-member attendance panel since the board’s inception, 846 cases have ended up in courtrooms when parents and students don’t follow the orders.
Penney said her division tries every approach it can before referring a family to the attendance board.
“Without fail, the major theme that emerges is families in crisis,” she said. Poverty, family breakdown, mental illness, and addiction are often at play when children are missing from school.
The school division first sends a letter home, then tries a home visit. If three letters have gone home with no improvement, Penney tries to meet the parents.
Schools don’t approach parents waving their fingers and tsktsking, she says — they offer help, and ask families what help they need to make it easier to get their child back into classrooms. The attempts to help can continue for years before the division calls in the attendance board, she said.
Last school year, paying for support staff, operations and honoraria for board members cost Albertans $1.2 million.
The pool of minister-appointed board members is large so hearings can be held near to where students live, said Jeremy Nolais, the education minister’s chief of staff. Serving on the board are retired educators, parents and grandparents, and members of the general public.
In July 2013, then education minister Jeff Johnson appointed 145 board members to four-yearterms on the board. The roster has since dropped to 115 people.