More than three years after the devastating Hurricane Katrina the New Orleans public schools are still hurting. Truancy has become a major problem and even the majority of students who come to school are woefully behind national standards.
On an average day in New Orleans' Recovery School District, about 20 percent of the students miss high school. More than half of all high school students are now chronically truant by state standards.
As a teacher in Los Angeles, truancy was a problem there as well. It can be frustrating and disheartening for teachers and consistent students who make the effort to get to school on time. However, as an educator, our goal is to give opportunities to all students, even those who make the choice to not take it.
Truancy reveals a deeper problem, either for the child or the parent. Sometimes families are so destroyed and problematic that school is simply not a priority.
Watch the video at this link, and answer the following questions in your post.
1. Why do you think there is such a huge truancy problem? Is there a truancy problem in your school?
2. In your opinion what is the best way to combat truancy?
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Truancy is such a big problem because most kids who really don't like school at all, and don't even care, just leave home but never show up. Their parents can't really do anything about it because the kids are going to school on their own. My school doesn't have a truancy problem, except for one kid awhile ago whose parents let him miss school occasionally. Like they mentioned in the video, with installing smartborads or other pieces of technology into the classroom is a great way to not only increase learning, but to increase an interest in school and learning. Also more hands-on activities like models and projects would bring an artsy interest to truant children and teens.
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5B: It is really depressing that truancy is such a big problem. I think it is such a big problem because with the hurricane, many students don't care about school anymore. It seems that students can be doing other things rather than school. It is kind of hard, because the parents don't really want to send their kids to school, so w/out the support, the children won't know what to do. Even before the hurricane, there was truancy, and after the hurricane, people saw the opportunity to just skip school. With the new law enforcement, I think that it might help a little bit more of the population, but again you can't get everybody. I like how they have concealing so that they can find out what the biggest problems are, so they can solve these problems. I don't see any truancy at my school because there isn't really an opportunity to. I think that there are a lot of people who would rather do different things, but it isn't an opportunity for us. I think that the best way to combat it is to make school not seem like so much work. Kids might skip school because they have a chance, and they can work, which means getting more money. If school seemed more like hands-on experiences, it might not seem like so much work, so kids could come back to school, and not throw away their entire future.
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