Attacking the longstanding issue of truancy n the city’s schools, the Boston City Council is proposing a new initiative to keep kids in class and on track to graduate.

City Council President Maureen Feeney and At-Large Councilor John Connolly have proposed an ordinance requiring parents of chronically truant students to appear before a judge in court. To support that move, the two are calling for a public hearing to establish a model for reducing truancy in the Boston Public Schools by focusing on parental accountability and family intervention for children with excessive unexcused absences.

“Obviously, nothing could be more powerful or effective in stopping a child’s truancy than actively engaged parents,” Feeney said. “But unfortunately, in some cases, it may take a day in court to get parents engaged.”

Feeney said that the hearing will be fast-tracked, and will likely take place within the next two weeks. The proposal was made at last Wednesday’s meeting of the Boston City Council.

Connolly and Feeney both cite a successful pilot program recently enacted in the Waterbury, Connecticut public school system. In that district, parents have been required to appear before a probate judge when their children have more than 18 unexcused absences. Since implementing the pilot program last January, parents of 87 children appeared in court, and their total number of unexcused absences dropped from 1,072 before the program began to just 87 absences through the remainder of the school year.

Despite the harshness of a court appearance, Feeney said the move is really intended to assist all involved.

“We’ve had different approaches to truancy,” she said. “We have a program where the probation department and school police and Boston police, all these people, go out and identify kids who should be in school,” she said. “But this is something that is not just a punitive measure, it really is an intervention. It is an intervention not just for the child but, in some instances, it is needed for a family that desperately needs support or some social services.”
Feeney said that truancy leaves students trapped in a dangerous circle.

“It is one of the most challenging issues, because very often a child hooks from school because they are not doing well in school or they are falling behind,” she said. “Then, when they go back to school, they are even further behind. It only encourages them to be truant more.”

“[With some parents] it is not that they don’t love their children,” she added. “They all want to do the right thing. But it really comes down to having a child who is out of control.”

Connolly said there is a correlation between truancy and drop out rates. There is also an even deeper impact on quality of life in the city, he said.

“[Chronically truant students] are almost guaranteed to become a drop-out,” he said. “Then they are more likely to be incarcerated or battle addiction or live in poverty without any options,” he said. “More than anything, our take was to see if we can make the centerpiece parent accountability and attack the issue as a family problem, not just one kid’s problem.

“This is an issue that touches on both our schools and our safety and our concerns about youth violence,” Connolly added. “It is an issue that cuts across things that are important to a high quality of life in the city.”

Connolly said one goal of the upcoming hearing is to compile statistics about the true rate of truancy in local schools. He said information on the trend is lacking in hard numbers from the school system. He estimated, however, that as many as 600 students each year are chronically truant and many of them eventually add to the ranks of the nearly 2,000 drop-outs each year.

“It is almost a guarantee that a chronically absent kid will drop out,” Connolly said.

Connolly envisions that the new effort will identify chronically truant students, require the parent, parents or guardian of the student to appear before a judge, and enable the judge to order various truancy remedies, including parenting classes, counseling, anger management and drug or alcohol treatment.