Milwaukee Truancy Solution Discussions

Erin Richards:

The success story that Alliance for Attendance members will hear about comes from Racine, which cut its truancy rate from 21.7% to 9% in two years.

The proposal comes from Ald. Tony Zielinski, who wants to change the way citations are issued to truant students. Currently, students have to be caught "red-handed" by police to receive a truancy ticket.

MPS' habitual truancy rate, which was more than 50% in 2001-'02, hasn't dropped below 45% in the intervening years. That translates to about 40,000 MPS students each year who had five or more unexcused absences during a semester, said Dan Wiltrout, a consultant for compulsory attendance from the state Department of Public Instruction.

"That's a big job," Wiltrout said.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at November 2, 2006 6:00 AM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas