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Group Tries To Combat Truancy In Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The waiting room of District Judge Richard King's court is crowded with parents and their kids, like Rachel Carpenter and her daughter, Bethany.

"My daughter had missed some days in the first quarter and they put her into the system because of truancy," Rachel Carpenter said.

Andy Sheehan: "Why do you miss school? Don't you like going?"

Bethany: "I slept in. It's just sleeping in that's hard."

Judge King will try to break truants of bad habits. If a stern lecture doesn't work, the judge can fine a parent or child or even put one or both in jail or juvenile detention.

But while school districts and district justices have gotten tough, truancy rates continue to climb.

With truancy defined as six or more unexplained absences, Pittsburgh leads the county with 36 percent of its students habitually missing school.

Penn Hills and McKeesport follow with a 34 percent truancy rate and in Woodland Hills, 26 percent of its students are chronically absent.

The organization Child Watch of Pittsburgh has sounded the alarm that these kinds of truancy rates will have a long-term impact on all of us.

"Why we should care is that truancy is a precondition of dropout, dropout creates significant unemployment, unemployment creates a significant amount of arrests," Chris Smith of Child Watch of Pittsburgh said.

The new approach prescribed by Child Watch involves reaching out to the student to find out why he or she is habitually truant and to connect that student and family with the support services they need.

"Our biggest priority is trying to identify why they're having difficulty in school and whether it is mental health, whether it is loss, whether it is a bullying issue," Deborah Genter, with Pittsburgh Public Schools, said.

More often than not the problem is in the home. Judge King says his court is crowded with single parents who are overwhelmed and believes the sooner they get help the better.

"The schools have to get the funding to play a bigger role, especially in the elementary level," King said. "And the lives of those children to help to some extent the parents learn how to raise them and actually educate the parent themselves."

Andy Sheehan: "That's a tall order."

Judge King: "It is a tall order, but you're going to pay that now or you're going to pay it later."

But Smith says the approach is already showing results.

"We have seen such a tremendous improvement of family function with early prevention, family support type of programs."

Bethany is a case in point. She's actually back for an update and reports she's now getting to school on time.

Andy Sheehan: "So you've turned it around. You're not going to drop out of school."

Bethany: "Oh heck no. I've made it too far to turn back now."

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More Reports By Andy Sheehan
Child Watch of Pittsburgh

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