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Truancy Plagues Philadelphia and Other Major Cities |
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By Laura Landoll After sending her 8-year-old daughter Chelsea to school, Jessica Moralez heard a knock on her door. A man wearing a black cap emblazoned with the letters "PTO" stood on her porch. The man identified himself as Parent Truancy Officer Mike Torres and informed Moralez that he needed to speak with her about her daughter's frequent absences from school. Moralez listened in shock while Torres explained that Chelsea's school had recorded her absent without an excuse on 16 occasions for the current school year. Torres explained gently, but firmly, that Moralez could find herself in truancy court with her daughter, if Chelsea continued to repeatedly skip school. Moralez told the truancy officer that her child's absences were excused, citing a list of illnesses and dental appointments. Chelsea may have failed to turn the excuse notes in to her teachers, she said. "I just had a conference with Chelsea's teacher last week and she did not tell me anything was wrong with her attendance record," Moralez stressed. Torres admitted that sometimes the school's databases are incorrect, but often parents are to blame for not calling the school to excuse their children or ensuring that notes reach the proper administrator. "How can a 6- or 8-year-old child be expected to remember to give their excuse notes to their teacher? Most of the time those notes just stay in their backpacks," Torres said. Moralez's story, however, is not a unique one. Approximately 13,000 children are truant each day in the Philadelphia School District--often without their parents' knowledge. But, whether they are aware of the truancies or not, parents can be subject to a variety of penalties, ranging from a $300 fine to parenting classes, jail and even removal of children from their home. To combat truancy, the Philadelphia School District organized the Attendance and Truancy Intervention/Prevention Supports (ATIPS) program in 2001. The district partnered with a number of community organizations, such as ASPIRA. These organizations are working to alert parents of truancy problems and prevent further absences before the matter must be settled in truancy court. "Cases only end up in court after a child accumulates 25 unexcused absences," said ATIPS Director Sue Ramirez. Alhough the Philadelphia School District is plagued by students who repeatedly skip classes, the issue afflicts school districts nationwide. According to a study conducted by the American Prosecutors Research Institute in 1998, approximately 15,000 students per day are truant in the New York City. Also, Detroit school officials investigated 66, 440 cases of chronic absenteeism. This study also found that Milwaukee public schools reported 4,000 unexcused absences per day in 1996. In Los Angeles, the largest U.S. school district, approximately 31,000 students were truant daily in 1996. |
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Mike Torres: Truancy Officer |
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By Nina Sachdev At 9:45 a.m. on Thursday, Mike Torres walks into 1921 Orleans St., an old row house located in North Philadelphia. Sitting on the living room floor is 8-year-old Chelsea Villafane. The Cartoon Network is on and Villafane's mother, Jessica Moralez, is on the couch smoking a cigarette. Villafane, who is home from school that day because of asthma, is breathing in this cloud of smoke. "Why isn't your daughter in school?" said Torres, a retired Philadelphia police officer. "She has asthma," the mother said. "I work the night shift. I was too tired to take her to school in the morning." Torres is not phased. He is accustomed to visiting homes of children who belong in school, but are not. And, although he is retired from the police force, these visits make him a different kind of law enforcer: a parent truancy officer. Since March 2003, Torres has worked as a PTO for the Attendance, Truancy, Intervention, Prevention and Support (ATIPS) Program. The initiative is dedicated to increasing attendance and the overall achievement of children in elementary, middle and high schools. The program also helps educate parents about Philadelphia truancy laws. The program is sponsored by the Philadelphia School District and ASPIRA Inc., a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to the "education and leadership development of Puerto Rican and other Latino youth," according to its Web site. Torres, who visits about 20 homes per day, said he is successful 50 percent of the time. A visit is considered successful if someone opens the door to him. "The hard part for me is to get parents to understand the consequences of having truant children," Torres said while driving past Willard Elementary, the school to which he has been assigned. "Parents can go to jail if they don't send their kids to school. They can have their kids taken away from them." Parents identify closely with Torres because he is a father of two children and has eight grandchildren, he said. In fact, one of the only ATIPS prerequisites to being a PTO is having children. "It's important to be able to connect with these people," Torres said, "To be on the same level." Torres pauses as he parks his truck across the street from his next house. The house looks abandoned, but Torres knocks anyway and waits for an answer. He looks relieved when no one comes to the door. "If the house looks unsafe or if I feel like I could be in danger, I won't go inside," he said. Although Torres said he has never felt like he was in immediate danger, he has seen conditions worse than just cigarette smoking. One of his worst experiences as a PTO involved confronting a drug-addicted mother. "When I got up to the door, I heard arguing inside," he said. "The parent was so high she couldn't even stand up. I smelled pot and I saw beer cans and roaches. And all of the children were home." Hours after his encounter with Villafane, Torres noticed several groups of children loitering on the streets near Kensington, a high school known for its truancy problems. "Yeah, they should be in school," he said to himself. "The principal should be replaced. It starts from the administration down." There are many reasons children do not go to school, Torres said. Some kids are afraid to go to school because they have been beaten up before. Others are bored of school. Teen pregnancy is a big reason for girls skipping school, he added. "At one house I saw a 14-year-old girl with her baby," he said, "and the father was 22. Both of them were living with her grandmother who was a drug user." Although Torres is disheartened anytime he sees children on the street, he said the numbers of truancies has decreased since the program's inception two years ago. "I'm losing money by working here, but I enjoy it," Torres said jokingly of his part-time pay. "It's for the kids. If you can save one, that's good. Someone needs to help these kids." |
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