HuffPost What's Working Honor Roll: How One Texas City Is Fighting Truancy And Getting Kids Back In School

How One Texas City Is Fighting Truancy And Getting Kids Back In School
In this image made from video, chairs sit empty in a classroom of Hunt Elementary School in Fort Valley, Ga., on Monday, May 17, 2010. The school is in Peach County, one of more than 120 school districts nationwide where students attend school just four days a week to save money. (AP Photo/Peter Prengaman)
In this image made from video, chairs sit empty in a classroom of Hunt Elementary School in Fort Valley, Ga., on Monday, May 17, 2010. The school is in Peach County, one of more than 120 school districts nationwide where students attend school just four days a week to save money. (AP Photo/Peter Prengaman)

In the third installment of a three-part series on truancy in Texas, Al Jazeera America examines how San Antonio is finding solutions to the state's attendance problem.

In most Texas schools, the punishment for truancy is an adult criminal conviction and a fine. Approximately 100,000 children face truancy charges in the state each year. Texas has been harshly criticized for its handling of students missing school.

But San Antonio is taking a different approach -- and it's working. The city found that many times, students are missing school not because of bad behavior, but because they are working and/or caring for their siblings because their families struggle financially. Rather than slapping the student with criminal charges, San Antonio school districts have teamed up with the city government to identify the reason students are missing school, and find ways to address it.

"If everybody in the household’s working just to put food on the table, can we get them hooked up with the food bank to ease that pressure?” Northside Independent School District superintendent Brian Woods told AJA. “So that the 14-year-old doesn’t have to work so many hours so that he’s not getting home at 2 o’clock in the morning and then we’re asking them to be at school at 6 in the morning.”

So far, this cause-specific approach is working. Truancy cases in San Antonio’s largest school district are down 2,715 from 5,808 in 2010, and attendance rates are rising.

MORE:

The What’s Working Honor Roll highlights some of the best reporting and analysis, from a range of media outlets, on all the ways people are working toward solutions to some of our greatest challenges. If you know a story you think should be on our Honor Roll, please send an email to our editor Catherine Taibi via catherine.taibi@huffingtonpost.com with the subject line "WHAT'S WORKING."

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot