Yonkers Truancy
The Yonkers Juvenile Crime Enforcement Coalition (YJCEC) identified truancy as one of the highest-priority local issues and created an ad-hoc workgroup, the Yonkers Truancy Reduction Strategy Group (YTRSG), to develop a plan to reduce truancy using existing resources, which could be supplemented by additional resources when and if those resources become available. The YTRSG includes representatives from the Yonkers Public Schools, Yonkers Police Department, DSS, Family Court, Probation Department, Westchester County Law Department, and the District Attorney’s Office. The YTRSG has held a series of meetings to assess the need, discuss potential strategies, and develop a plan that is outlined below.
OVERVIEW
The YJCEC’s Truancy Reduction Strategy Group has developed a new procedure that we began implementing in Yonkers in September 2007. Under the new procedure Yonkers school personnel will investigate all cases where students in grades 1-8 have 15+ total unexcused absences in a single school year. School personnel will investigate to determine if there are any extenuating reasons for the absences, e.g. a long trip abroad or an extended illness, and will also review the student’s school records to determine if the absences are having negative academic impacts, as evidenced by low or failing grades, being held back, etc. If the investigation documents a negative academic impact and no extenuating circumstances, school personnel will file a formal Educational Neglect report to the New York State Child Abuse Hotline, which, if accepted by NYS, will be referred back to the Westchester DSS Child Protective Services (CPS) unit for investigation and appropriate action.
The short-term impact of our new policy will be to dramatically increase the number of Educational Neglect reports filed from Yonkers, beginning in October 2007. We estimate that successful implementation of our new policy will result in 363-479 additional Educational Neglect reports from Yonkers during our first year of implementation. This range represents an increase of 71% to 94% over the 508 Educational Neglect reports filed in Yonkers in 2005-2006. We estimate that this increased caseload will require 8-10 new CPS workers in Yonkers to handle the increased caseload. Family Court and Probation would also experience increased caseloads as the new cases make their way through the system.
The potential long-term impacts of our new policy are enormous. If properly implemented, our new procedure could identify and help bring early intervention services to hundreds of high-risk youth in high-risk families who would otherwise in most cases float through the system unaided until they emerged again into public view as teenage delinquents, dropouts, and criminals. The early intervention services provided will not be able to save every student or turn around every dysfunctional family, but they offer our best hope for long-term reductions in school failure, violence, drug abuse, and crime in Yonkers.
UPCOMING EVENTS
UPCOMING MEETING DATESS
• Tuesday September 23 • Thursday October 30 • Tuesday November 18 • Tuesday December 16
Time: 8:30 a.m.
Notes: This meeting will be followed at 9:30 by a meeting of the Yonkers Truancy Prevention Resource Coordination WorkGroup.
Location: Yonkers Public School's central office at One Larkin Center (across from Yonkers the train station.) Fourth floor, Room A.
Driving Directions
OTHER NOTICES
On May 7th of 2007 we predicted: "In the short term, we expect this new policy to significantly increase the number of Educational Neglect reports filed from Yonkers (by 71% to 94%)." As of 2/20/08, compared to the same period during the prior school year, the number of educational neglect reports filed by Yonkers has increased by 89%.
TRUANCY RESOURCES
Students who are disengaged from school are at risk for many poor outcomes beyond poor academic achievement. They are at risk of skipping classes, sexual activity, substance use, and ultimately dropping out of school. A new Child Trends brief, Assessing School Engagement: A Guide for Out-Of-School Time Program Practitioners, provides information on why school engagement matters, how out-of-school time programs can affect school engagement, and how to measure engagement. The brief includes specific measures of school engagement from three surveys and a list of additional resources.
Paying attention to early absenteeism provides an invaluable opportunity to identify and address social, emotional, cognitive and familial issues early on. It offers a chance to intervene before children have fallen years behind the academic performance of their peers and lost hope in ever succeeding in school. Using absenteeism as a trigger for early intervention could be especially important for closing the achievement gap for low-income families as well as for children from communities of color. Schools and communities, however, cannot take advantage of this opportunity to take an upstream approach to addressing problems unless chronic absence is tracked and monitored for each student. Ensuring every child has an equal opportunity to reach his or her potential requires making sure every child is present, engaged and accounted for as soon as they begin school.
This three-page excerpt from Yonkers' Juvenile Justice Strategy and Action Plan (as released on 4/8/08) summarizes major research findings on how chronic truancy impacts individuals and communities.
This three-page document summarizes the Yonkers Public Schools' new initiative to reduce chronic truancy through improved educational neglect reporting. This initiative was submitted in July 2008 for possible inclusion in the United States Conference of Mayors' list of best practices for At-Risk Youth and High School Drop-Out Prevention.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) published this very detailed and useful “Tool Kit for Creating Your Own Truancy Reduction Program" in 2007.
This flowchart illustrates the Educational Neglect reporting process being implemented in Yonkers, as proposed on 3/16/07.
This supplemental educational neglect reporting form helps mandated reporters in the schools organize the information needed to file an effective report to the State Central Registry. This version, prepared by the Westchester Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect, is based upon a form developed by the Yonkers Board of Education, Westchester County Attorney, Westchester County District Attorney, and Westchester County Department of Social Services.
Students who drop out of school don't do so impulsively but instead may fall into a dropout trajectory as early as kindergarten, according to an Arizona State University study to appear in the Journal of Education Research. "Educators may be overlooking important developmental trajectories exhibited by students prior to entering high school," said Gregory Hickman, who directed the undergraduate research. "Dropouts miss an average of 124 days by eighth grade." The Arizona Republic (Phoenix) (2/6/08)
This Powerpoint presentation summarizes the findings of the study referred to above.
This 2007 study, funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, compares the average number of days kindergarten and elementary school students were absent across income levels and races/ethnicities, and explores how rates of early absenteeism affect absenteeism in later years as well as academic achievement.
This NYS Office of Children and Family Services Model Policy on Educational Neglect was released on February 28, 2008.
