by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
School starts for many this coming Monday and for parents all over Jacksonville it’s a great day. For the State Attorney’s Office, the Duval County School System, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and others, though, Monday kicks off the annual year-long battle against truancy.
The Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce is teaming with all of these agencies and dozens of area businesses to combat truancy, an issue that starts entirely too early for many kids. The “Count Me In for Learning” campaign is designed to put attending school and learning at the forefront of kids’ minds as they embark on a new school year. It’s being chaired by Baptist Health President and CEO Hugh Greene, who said the truancy statistics in Duval County are staggering and that preventing truancy could save the county millions of dollars.
“We are going to fight truancy in a consistent way throughout the year,” said Greene. “This is a year-long effort.”
State Attorney Harry Shorstein said his office will once again work closely with the school system to monitor habitually-truant students.
“If we address the problem early, we have a better chance of correcting it,” said Shorstein, whose office cracks down hard on the parents of kids who start missing dozens of days. “We will arrest and prosecute parents who don’t send their kids to school.”
Shorstein said he understands some parents have little to no control of school attendance once their child heads for the bus stop or they leave for work. However, he blames the parents when kids start missing 75, 100 days in one school year. And, he said his well-publicized arrests work.
“Oh yes, we know it works. We do it two to three times a year and right after the arrests, attendance goes up,” said Shorstein.