by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
According to the State Attorney’s Office (SAO), over 18,000 Duval County Public School students missed at least 20 days of school last year due to unexcused absences.
The SAO looks at that as a potential crime problem and the numbers prove it is.
The school system looks at it as 126,000 hours of education opportunity missed.
The business community sees truancy as a long-term problem that could ultimately affect the local workforce.
All three joined forces Monday to launch the SAO’s newest truancy deterrent — a nine-minute video aimed at showing how parents aid and abet the truancy problem and the programs in place to help them and their kids.
Chief Assistant State Attorney Jay Plotkin hosted a press conference Monday to promote the “Miss a day, Miss a lot, Miss a life” campaign. Plotkin also pointed out that October was national truancy month, something he says is indicative of the problem nationally and especially on the local level.
“Truancy is a very, very serious problem,” said Plotkin, adding 42,000 truants have been picked up by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office or police at the beach since 1999. “If you look at the numbers, they are absurdly large. This continues to be a very, very significant problem.”
The new campaign is designed to do two things: make parents aware that there are programs in place to aid them in getting their kids to school and the consequences of repeated truancy. A nine-minute video will be sent to every public school in the county. In the video, the real-life problems of three single parents that had truancy problems with their kids are chronicled. Each parent had very different circumstances but they were tied by the bond of truant kids. All three also entered the SAO’s truancy program and today have kids who are going to school and making good grades.
State law says any child 6 or older must attend school. The law also says the child is legally truant after the fifth unexcused absence in a month or the 10th in a 90-day period.
“If the kids do not go to school, we will arrest the parents and they will go to jail,” said State Attorney Harry Shorstein in the video.
Both Plotkin and Sheriff John Rutherford said truancy is the very first step towards a life of crime. Truants become dropouts and dropouts become criminals.
“Career criminals start out as truants. There’s a clear road map,” said Rutherford.
“Truancy is the first indication of a life of crime,” said Shorstein.
Ron Baker, the deputy CEO at the Jacksonville Port Authority, was on hand to represent the local business community. Baker said the Port and virtually every other business in town is looking for employees with at least a high school diploma.
“We want to improve the quality of life in Jacksonville,” said Baker. “It’s something as employers we are serious about. We want quality people.”
Plotkin said 171 parents have been arrested for habitually truant kids since the late 1990s. Most of those arrests result in at least one year of probation and very little to any jail time. Plotkin said the arrests are often the final eye-opener.
“There are many success stories,” he said. “Studies show that prevention and intervention works. We need help from the business community to make sure these kids aren’t in businesses during school hours.”
With almost 130,000 students and just 30 staff members dedicated to truancy, the Duval County School System has one of the worst truancy problems in the state. Plotkin said he isn’t exactly sure why Jacksonville tops the list, but he does believe more people — from his office to JSO to the business community — who focus on it, the more that can be done.
“Imagine this community if we could reduce the number of truants. If we reduce it by 1,000 or 2,000 or 3,000, that’s significant,” said Plotkin. “That would mean fewer dropouts, a higher graduation rate, less crime and higher FCAT scores.”
