Truancy, Students and Schools

School Administrators throughout the country know that truancy is a serious and growing problem, and usually attempt to address it through the courts. After all, the law is clear: students must attend school.

Teachers and administrators strive to find ways to keep children in school, but despite their efforts, an increasing number of students are habitually tardy, or fail to attend at all. With an increase in truancy comes a corresponding increase in juvenile delinquency, and that often leads to subsequent adult criminal behavior.

When addressing truancy, administrators most commonly rely on law enforcement and the courts to render punishment in order to compel compliance. That course is chosen despite the fact that in Texas, as in many other states, the law not only allows, but actually encourages the use of alternative means to resolve legal matters.

It's well known that children who are told to do something are much more likely to rebel against it, whereas children who are included in the decision-making process are more likely to follow through with their commitments. Our "Truancy Prevention Through Mediation" program is intended to become an adjunct to a court-directed system, designed to be an early intervention component that brings the student into the process that will decide his or her fate.

The Protestant work ethic has long been the backbone of child rearing in America, with a major part of that philosophy requiring punishment as the primary motivator to ensure good behavior. Legislatively mandated "zero tolerance" policies were enacted in the early 1990s, and remain well entrenched in elementary, middle and high school disciplinary programs, despite the fact that statistics show it hasn't worked.

When a neutral third-party facilitator from outside the school system is brought into a concentrated mediation process, the truant student gains a chance to be heard by becoming part of the resolution process. Wherever it has been tried, mediation in truancy prevention has been effective.

Call us and give us a chance to talk to you and your administrators about ways we can help you reduce truancy, increase attendance, and improve your school's overall academic standing.