Peerto-peer pressure combats truancy
Truancy, the absence of a child from school, can be a snowball.
As it rolls down the proverbial hill, it grows into neglect, and delinquency, and thenwithdrawal and unemployment and crime and dissipation, all from the lack of attendance in class when the rest of the world is learning.
Recognizing this basic dilemma, personnel in the Chester County Common Pleas Court have been working in partnership with those in the county’s child welfare agency and the Kennett Consolidated School District to create a model truancy prevention program in one of the county’s elementary schools.
To date, the program has been a resounding success, said those involved.
“I think this is awesome,” said Judge Ann Marie Wheat-
craft, who help spearhead the effort put together by Clay Cauley, a hearing officer and special master in the court system in West Chester. “It is an effort to change the culture (of truancy) in schools, to change the attitudes” of students and parents who might think “school is uncool.
“Schools can identify the children who are at risk, and if it catches on gets teachers, parents, and the class itself” involved in combatting chronic truancy.
The key, said Cauley in an interview last month about the program, is to use peer-to-peer pressure to get students to attend elementary school on a regular basis. A set system of rewards and consequences are put in place to add a level of competition between classes and students to see who can have the best record for perfect attendance.
“If this works, we can run with it,” said Cauley, “It would open the door for funding,” and possible expansion. “If we get a handle on this, it’s easier to handle the other issues.”
The truancy prevention program began in 2017 in the Kennett school district at the Bancroft Elementary School in New Gar-
den. Wheatcraft and Cauley had identified truancy as a court-related issue involving children after a series of round-table conferences with members of the state judiciary and social service agencies.
In its mission statement, the programstates that the prevention program is intended to address chronic absences before truancy has an opportunity to take root. “Once a student … envelops behaviors associated with truancy it is far (more difficult) to reduce or eliminate the conditions that have given rise to (it.) Truancy begets truancy,” the statement points out.
If students who were prone to attending class were given incentives to work with their peers at keeping up their school appearances, wouldn’t that help instill in them a natural tendency to continue on in later years?
Cauley, an attorney who worked for years in the Philadelphia Truancy Court system, said he started with the premise that young students enjoy school.
“Most kids want to go to school” in the early grades, Cauley said. It’s not until later that they develop the habits, through neglect or delinquency, that lead them to miss so much time that 16- and 17-year-olds find themselves stuck in middle school.
“Fourth grade is early enough to catch themwhen they are still excited about school,” he said.
Cauley worked with administrative personnel in the Kennett district, including Assistant Superintendent Michael Barber, to install the prevention program. The district would work with students, parents, and teachers to work competitively toward perfect attendance. Winners would get rewards – gift cards of low denominations – while those who fell short would face “consequences” – such as calls from their fellow students or tutoring sessions.
“Classmates encourage their peers to be in class,” Cauley said. “The kids become their own champions” as they learn to appreciate the accolades that come with attendance. Cauley said staff at the county’s Department of Children, Youth and Families were able to find grant funding to pay for the gift cards, and the staff at Bancroft and Kennett gave assistance to families that had problems with attendance.
To date, Cauley and his colleagues say the program has been a success. Some of the fourth-grade classes at Bancroft, he said, have 100 percent attendance – that is no unexcused absences. (Health absences are allowed, with proper parental permission.)
Barber was enthusiastic about the program overall.
“Combatting truancy is essential to moving kids forwards, and it is great to have such a supportive partnership with the county and the courts,” he said recently. “The fourth graders at Bancroft are doing an exceptional job. Their attendance is outstanding.”