The ABCs of Ditching School

Schools are trying to contain their truancy epidemic. How're they doing? Just ask the students smoking pot less than a block from campus.

Comments (0) By Lauren Smiley Wednesday, Feb 3 2010

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Mayor Gavin Newsom has heard that argument while personally knocking on the doors of truant students' homes. (With a mother's permission, he once even rousted one student from bed. "I said I'm the mayor, and he said, I know who you are!" Newsom told SF Weekly.) About the classes-are-boring complaint, he says, "I'm sure sometimes it's legitimate. But you can never even get the mind engaged if you don't get the body [in class], and that's why at least we've got to start there."

The help from the city couldn't come at a better time for the financially troubled school district, which just announced it would be cutting up to 400 positions.

Joseph Schell

On the first day of the new semester, two O’Connell High students flee campus.

Joseph Schell

An O’Connell High student forges his own exit from the school.

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Already, some city budget cuts have eliminated valuable positions. For the past two years, Alejandra Rodas dug in to fix the woeful truancy rate at Sanchez Elementary as an employee of the nonprofit Mission Neighborhood Center, contracted by the city. A Mission native herself, Rodas counseled 150 families in two years. She would ambush parents as they dropped off tardy students or make home visits, advising them she was their last resource before they would be referred to the district attorney. To help them out, she would drive kids to school in her Honda. She invited students who improved their attendance to "superstar lunches" of their choice, or on field trips, sometimes paid for out of her own pocket.

In 2008, Kamala Harris stood in front of Sanchez Elementary declaring victory: a 75 percent drop in chronic truants at the school. Yet this year, Rodas' position was eliminated in budget cuts. "The teachers and social workers are overwhelmed," Rodas says. "If you have a specific person who's willing to go deep and see how we can make this family function in the school district, you can [get kids to school]. But you need someone to physically deal with that." (Sanchez Principal Raymond Isola says a team of staffers works on truancy, and the attendance rate has continued to climb this school year.)

John O'Connell High School has seen a scaling back of resources even while it tries to increase its truancy efforts. This year, the school has to share its previously full-time attendance liaison with two other schools. While other staffers have attempted to pick up the slack, in the end, that means one fewer pair of eyes to — metaphorically and quite literally — watch the schoolyard fence. On a gray January Thursday, another boy approached the side gate of the schoolyard. He expertly climbed up to grab the arch over the top, shimmied through a hole, dropped to the sidewalk, and walked away.

But maybe all of Principal Duber's efforts aren't in vain. Otherwise, what could possibly account for what happened next? Half an hour later, the boy returned, hoisted himself up the gate, and squeezed through the hole. He sneaked back in.