Please feel free to use this fact sheet to help educate people around you about the important problem of truancy. If you have or can locate information about truancy rates and related problems in your schools and districts, please adapt this fact sheet accordingly. It will pack a more powerful punch with school and community members if they see data that are specific to local youth. You may want to review the National Center's past event, Using Existing Data in Your Needs Assessment, for ideas about where and how to access such information.

Definition of Truancy

• Truancy is traditionally defined as an absence from school that is not excused by the parent/guardian or the school. The specific number of absences required before a student is labeled a truant varies according to state law.

• While the traditional definition emphasizes the unexcused nature of a student's absence, truancy prevention and intervention efforts are increasingly focusing more broadly on student attendance since numerous excused absences can result in a similar set of negative outcomes as numerous unexcused absences (e.g., poorer academic performance and decreased attachment to school).

• When trying to define truancy, it is important to look at two dimensions of absenteeism: missing full days of school and missing some classes, but not others. While many truant students miss numerous full days of school, other students have few full-day absences, but are frequently marked as absent from specific classes.

Local Scope of the Issue

As mentioned above, it would be very helpful if you could locate and add some information about truancy rates and related problems in your area.

National Scope of the Issue

• Between 1989 and 1998, the rate of petitioned truancy status offense cases handled by juvenile courts increased by 85 percent (from 22,200 to 41,000), representing a 61 percent increase in the rate of truancy cases.

• Truancy cases comprised 26 percent of all status offense cases handled in 1998.

• Some metropolitan areas report that thousands of students are absent without an excuse each day.

• In public schools, the absentee rate was highest in urban schools and lowest in rural schools. Absentee rates generally increase with rates of student poverty as measured by the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

Factors that Contribute to Truancy:

• School Factors:

  • School safety
  • School size
  • Attitudes of school staff and fellow students
  • Flexibility in meeting students' diverse learning styles
  • Failure to successfully notify parents/guardians about each absence
  • Lack of consistency and uniformity to attendance and attendance policy within schools and districts

• Family Factors:

  • Lack of parent supervision and/or guidance
  • Poverty
  • Substance abuse
  • Domestic violence
  • Lack of familiarity with school attendance laws
  • Varied education priorities

• Economic Factors:

  • Student employment
  • Single-parent households
  • Parents with multiple jobs
  • Families that lack affordable transportation and/or child care

• Student Factors:

  • Substance use
  • Limited social and emotional competence
  • Mental health problems
  • Poor physical health
  • Lack of familiarity with school attendance laws
  • Teen pregnancy
  • Truant friends

Truancy as a Predictor of Other Problems:

• Truancy has been clearly identified as an early warning sign that students are headed for potential delinquent activity, social isolation, or educational failure via suspension, expulsion, or dropping out.

• Truancy is connected to both lack of commitment to school and low achievement rates, which are clear risk factors for substance abuse, delinquency, teen pregnancy, and school dropout.

• High rates of truancy are linked to high rates of daytime burglary and vandalism.

The Financial Impact of Truancy:

• Children who are habitually truant are often placed in the custody of social services, which is traumatic for children and their families and expensive for taxpayers.

• Schools lose state education funding due to high rates of truancy and dropout since such funding is typically dependent on actual attendance rates.

• The financial impact of truancy is passed on to taxpayers through the cost of court time and personnel fees paid to attorneys identified to represent the school in truancy proceedings. There are also additional costs associated with arrest, prosecution, and incarceration when truant students engage in delinquent acts.

• Businesses must pay to train uneducated workers. Additionally, businesses and shopping centers in close proximity to schools experience a loss in business due to the number of youth "hanging out."

• Many students who are habitually truant end up dropping out of school, and the consequences of dropping out are well documented. For example, school dropouts:

  • Are more likely to be involved in problem behaviors such as delinquency, substance abuse, and early childbearing
  • Have significantly fewer job prospects
  • Make lower salaries
  • Are more often unemployed
  • Are more likely to be welfare-dependent
  • Experience unstable marriages more frequently
  • Are more likely to engage in criminal behavior

From:

National Center for School Engagement Web site: http://www.truancyprevention.org/ and Day 1 materials.