Candidates like anti-truancy pilot

APS board hopefuls generally positive on program running at 23 schools

Winning candidates in Tuesday’s Albuquerque Public Schools board election will be tasked with the job of tackling one of the district’s biggest problems — truancy.

The district had 13,941 habitually truant students, about 16 percent of all students, in 2013, the last year state data is available.

APS teachers and school officials work hard to ensure students succeed academically, but if kids don’t show up, it doesn’t matter, interim Superintendent Brad Winter has said.

Candidates in this year’s three school board races — in email responses to the Journal — discussed their views on the district’s truancy problem. District 1 incumbent school board President Analee Maestas and District 4 candidate Sina-Aurelia Pleasant Soul-Bowe did not respond to the truancy inquiry by press time.

A majority of candidates said they like APS’ current truancy pilot program, in place at 23 schools, which involves hiring social workers who work with families of habitually truant students to address underlying issues. Those

include lack of transportation, complicated home lives and undiagnosed mental health issues for students and family members, among others.

District 4 candidate John “Jake” Lopez said he thinks the program is “a step in the right direction,” but he would like to see more data before he would move to expand it.

Lopez said it is important that schools make their curriculum culturally relevant to all students so they feel welcome in school.

Similarly, Pleasant SoulBowe said at a recent candidate forum she, too, would work to make sure students feel welcome in schools.

Charles “Ched” MacQuigg, a District 4 candidate, said school officials have to make school a place where kids want to go.

“The idea that you can force kids to attend school against their will and then they will happily take a seat and begin learning is as unrealistic as it is naive,” he said.

Barbara Petersen, a District 4 candidate, said, “This (pilot) program, by addressing the actual causal factors in truancy, has made a significant difference and should be expanded.”

Mark Gilboard, also a District 4 candidate, had a similar take.

“Lastly, we can’t underestimate the value of community organizations and local businesses and their midlevel managers in emphasizing the need for young people to stay in school,” he said.

District 1 candidate Colt Balok said the state’s Breakfast After the Bell program, an anti-hunger program, is a good program for combating truancy, and he would support making attendance mandatory for students to participate in extracurricular activities.

Madelyn Jones, also a District 1 candidate, said she supports the APS truancy pilot, but not the proposal to strip truant students of their licenses.

In the District 2 race, both candidates said they like what they’ve seen from the program.

Peggy Muller-Aragon, however, said she would need to see more data showing positive results before she would support the pilot’s expansion.

Incumbent Kathy Korte, meanwhile, said overtesting is part of the truancy problem. She said “school should be a learning ground of all types of experiences that allow students to explore themselves, their talents and contemplate their futures. Rigid testing is killing that and is making kids not want to go to school.”

None of the candidates who responded to the Journal inquiry said they were in favor of a proposal to strip habitually truant students of their licenses.

“I support truancy strategies that provide positive reinforcement rather than strategies that are punitive in nature,” Muller-Aragon said.