Dealing with truancy in Grant County schools

Published 7:00 am Wednesday, September 11, 2024

JOHN DAY — Bonni Booth, the Everyday Matters specialist for the Grant County Education Service District, said that since truancy laws were done away with, the term she uses is “failure to supervise a child.” 

The Grant ESD’s policy on failure to supervise a child is to first identify barriers students may have that would impact their school attendance. Those barriers could be anything from food insecurity to housing insecurity, transportation insecurity and technological insecurity.

Booth, with the help of school resource officers and, if necessary, the Grant County Justice Court, works with the student’s family to address those insecurities.

“We take a very individualized approach in supporting these families to overcome these barriers,” she said.

Booth said that could take the form of her driving kids who need a ride to and from school or providing food bags for children who may not have enough to eat.

“I’m very solution-oriented, and any barrier that I encounter, I try to come up with a solution on how to support them,” she said.

If that approach fails, the next step is either a home visit by Booth and the school’s resource officer or a citation that compels the parent or guardian of a chronically absent student to explain their child’s attendance problems to the Grant County Justice Court. Booth said the court will generally offer a diversion program that includes parenting education courses and help in figuring out what the barriers are to getting their kids to school.

“In partnership with the core system, with our school resource officer and with our school districts, we work to address all of the variables that go into chronic absenteeism,” she said.

There is a threshold that will trigger a potential visit to Justice Court. Booth said the satisfactory school attendance rate set by the state of Oregon is 90.1%, which allows a student to miss two days of school per month.

A citation will likely come when a student’s attendance rate drops into the 80% range, Booth said.

Booth also stressed that although a 90.1% attendance rate is a good minimum, maintaining that rate from the start of kindergarten through high school graduation would allow a student to miss a full year of school when all the absences are tallied up.

While home visits and citations sound bad, Booth stressed that, at the end of the day, she is there to help families and wants to see kids in school.

“You know, I’m not there to be the bad guy and dismiss all the hardships of their life,” she said. “I’m there to help them out.”