(upbeat music) - Welcome to "At Issue".

I'm H Wayne Wilson.

Thank you as always for joining us.

This time, the conversation will focus on truancy, particularly in Peoria County where more than 400 students this past year were defined as truant.

We'll get into a definition of what that actually means.

But more importantly, we're going to discuss the impact it has on society and how we might go about reducing the number of truants in Peoria County schools.

And for those of you outside Peoria County, the numbers are going to be somewhat similar.

It's the same issue regardless of where you live.

And to have the conversation, let me introduce to you first, Carl Holloway.

Carl is with Peoria Public Schools, where he is the attendance connector.

Thank you for being with us.

- Thanks for the invite, appreciate it.

- [H Wayne] And Beth Crider is here.

Beth is the superintendent of the Regional Office of Education in Peoria County.

Thank you as always for being here.

- Thank you.

- So, let's talk about definitions before we get into the impact.

What is the definition of truancy?

- Well, truancy is part of the law.

I actually printed the law.

It's quite thick.

But truancy is, if you are subject to compulsory attendance, you're supposed to go to school, and you don't, then you're considered truant.

A chronic or habitual truant is a child that misses more than 5% of the school year, which is about 180 days of school, 5% of that.

If you're a truant minor, that means we've tried to provide services to you to get you back in school, and a dropout, unfortunately, is defined as a child that is no longer attending school.

- So, truancy would be more than nine unexcused absences?

- [Beth] That is correct.

- From a practical standpoint, this is the Illinois State Board of Education telling us what a truant is.

Carl, you're feet on the ground.

Not that Beth isn't, but you're feet on the ground.

What is a truant?

- Well, Beth was right on point.

But like she said, excessive absences, repeated absences, days, three to four days out of a week where you're not in school, that defines truant for me.

- You made reference to absenteeism.

Is there a difference between truancy and chronic absenteeism?

- There is, but any day you miss from school is a day that you're missing content, interaction with your peers, being part of that social climate, all the things that school brings.

Meals.

So, absences of any kind become a concern.

Now, we don't want you there if you're sick, but if you're repeatedly absent, it's going to make an impact.

Truancy, though, when you're unexcused, then that's gonna cause a little bit more to happen with your family.

- Carl, let's get into the weeds again.

Absenteeism, it could be excused if Mom or Dad sends a note or calls up and says, "So and so is sick today."

- Sure.

- And really isn't.

- Sure, that could be an issue.

But how do we interpreting it and identify whether that's factual or not?

So we have to go by what the parent says at that time.

- So, this is a case of feet on the ground to try to address this issue.

How do you go about identifying who is truant?

And we're gonna get into a lot of conversation, but what are the initial steps when you say, okay, so and so is truant?

Now what's next?

- Well, the initial step is a phone call to the parent.

After that, we'll start doing a home visit.

Some may be in the mornings, some in the afternoons, and some even in the evening.

And once we reach the parent, we identify what the problem is, or if it's social issues, if it's depression, or is it some mental health issues?

Do we need social services to get involved?

Is it anxiety?

What's going on?

Why is your kid not coming to school?

And how can we help?

- Carl listed, you know, anxiety and et cetera.

There's a host of reasons why a child might be truant.

So, this has to be almost individualized in terms of with 400 plus students defined as truant, and the number may be higher.

Each child has a different environment in which you have to identify problems and address them.

- And without people like Carl knocking on doors, we can't identify what those are.

So, Peoria County is responsible for truancy, and we do that through my office.

And I employ Project TARGET employees to go out and do exactly what Carl described.

Finding the family.

You may knock on a door and that is not where they live.

High mobility is part of this issue.

So we are knocking on doors, putting door hangers, we're here, we want to serve you.

What can we do to make you successful?

We want to get your child back in school.

What is that gonna take?

But it's a client-centered case management approach of what is it that you need to make you successful?

It's more of a carrot approach than a big stick.

- I wanna talk a little bit about the causes of truancy.

Carl started the conversation with family factors.

What do you find with regard to when you are able to visit a home, what kinds of conditions do you find that you need to- - What don't we find?

So, sometimes it's as simple as resources, school uniforms, a haircut, a new pair of shoes.

Sometimes it's severe mental health issues including substance abuse.

Sometimes it's housing insecurity, they're facing homelessness.

Sometimes it's babysitting issues, there are younger siblings that need to be put on the bus or they need to take them off the bus.

There could be concerns within the school, bullying, something going on in the school situation, or there's just so much stress on the family, why would school be the priority?

There are so many other needs they're focused on, school moves down the list.

- And Carl, that leads to the conversation about economic influences.

Do you have some examples of what you find that would prevent a child from attending from an economic point of view?

- Well, some of the things that Beth mentioned, clothing, having your appearance up to par, not having a haircut, not having a pair of shoes, from that standpoint.

Also, I'm finding out there's some teens and high school students, they take their younger sibling to school first, and then they'll try to get their way to school after.

But in the process, they miss one or two classes in the process of that.

So, we got teens taking care of their little siblings.

- So, when someone doesn't have a pair of shoes, for example, what role do you play in helping that child?

- Well, at that time, I would reach out to some resources that we have, or social services that we have, to get a voucher and accommodate that child with those shoes.

- So you have a list of organizations that you contact?

- Yes.

- That you've established?

- [Carl] Yes.

- And sometimes they don't wanna be known.

(both laughing) We always talk about the wraparound approach.

And there's a wraparound center, I think it's the Trewyn School.

There's a lot of different organizations that have to be on board in order to provide all these different services for the individual cases.

- Well, I love that Carl's title is connector.

That's really what it's about.

As a matter of fact, we don't call our truancy department truancy officers, we call them family support specialist, because it's all about centering that family in a proactive approach, that wraparound approach, that is, family, you tell us what you need.

We have an end goal of getting your child back in school, but you tell us and we will help connect you, whether that is with Trewyn Place, might be an organization that we need to provide those mental health supports.

The United Way, 211.

There are such a variety of things that we rely on to pick up that phone, make that phone call.

But if you came into my office today and opened up the cabinets, you would find hundreds of backpacks filled with school supplies.

You would find uniforms in every color, shape, and size.

You would find lice kits.

You would find air mattresses.

We keep that stuff in stock.

Laundry, we haven't mentioned laundry is a big deal.

When you don't have access to get your clothes clean, that becomes a whole issue.

I have boxes and boxes of laundry soap in a closet in our basement.

- You took note when she said laundry.

- Yeah, there's a laundry at both schools, I think at Manual and Peoria High.

- [H Wayne] There's a laundry at Peoria High School?

- Yeah, yeah, there's a washer and dryer, washers and dryers.

- And Manual?

- Yes, yeah.

- The steps you have to go to to help when... And so poverty is a big issue here.

- [Carl] Poverty and trauma.

- And trauma, for instance?

- Well, like I said, with the anxiety or whatever they're going through, personal experiences within the family, if there's something going on, and it's affecting them negatively.

- So those student variables that... And sometimes it takes a while to even identify those variables.

- [Carl] Sure.

- I wanna talk about two programs.

Let's talk about Project TARGET first, and then we'll talk about a new program that you just got approval for.

But let's talk about TARGET first.

- It's been around for almost three decades, and it is your classic knocking on doors, finding families that we get referrals for from the schools.

We try to establish really good relationships with those school secretaries, because as you know, they know everything, and they connect us to some of these students that have needs.

And then we try to connect to the family, we get them back to school.

Once we get them back in the building, there is a weekly monitoring visit where we're checking and connecting with that child in the school system.

How are you doing?

Have you been attending?

What's going on?

How are you doing?

Shooting for 80% of attendance.

And we report those numbers to the state of Illinois.

That's how we knew, on the report, 407 truants we worked with last year through that program.

But sometimes, knocking on the door and getting a new uniform isn't enough.

Sometimes that new pair of shoes isn't enough, it's just a Band-Aid on, like, deeper, harder issues.

That's why I wrote a grant to the city of Peoria, because I know that truancy is the first red flag that goes up on the way to violence.

So if I can intervene then, but I need some deeper, harder interventions.

We're gonna try to start a truancy advisory board, we are going to start a truancy advisory board, and that's Project START.

- And we'll talk about START in just a moment.

- You got it.

- But I wanna turn over to Carl again because Beth mentioned a couple of things, but one that caught my attention was the school secretary, or it might be the gym teacher.

How much do you rely on the staff at the schools to say, "A problem with this family, you may wanna check into them"?

- Well, 100%, because they receive the calls.

Sometimes they'll get a call.

Matter of fact, a parent says, "Hey, I'm struggling with my 15-year-old coming to school.

He doesn't have a haircut or he has some issues with large crowds, can you come and talk to him or can you send someone out?"

So, that information may be relayed to the office, and while I'm out knocking on doors, I didn't get that info, but when I get back to the office... Or they may give me a call and say, "Hey, this kid needs X, Y, and Z."

So they're very, very, very instrumental in finding out what's going on in the house.

So if I'm knocking on doors and then the parent gets the door hanger and they call the school and they say, "Hey, this is why," and then they give you a list of things that's going on in the house, and then we go from there.

But we have to identify though.

- So, let's turn to the newest effort.

The city of Peoria, through federal funds, was able to distribute to six different organizations some funding.

And you were able to get one of those six grants for $175,000.

It's called Project START.

Explain how START... Is that different from TARGET or is that an extension of TARGET?

- I would define it as an extension.

Project TARGET is going to go out, find the families, provide resources, do what we do for all families that are experiencing struggles to try to get them back in school.

But sometimes we need to follow that case more closely, provide a deeper intervention, and get more services on board.

And so we're going to use a truancy advisory board concept where the family comes in for that very detailed wraparound service approach, and then we track the response more carefully.

It's hard to measure what you prevent, but I firmly believe that if we prevent truancy on the front end, we have such better outcomes for kids in the end.

- This will add staff to you?

How is this $175,000 being spent?

- We're using it as startup funds because we have a sustainability plan to continue it for years to come.

- [H Wayne] It's a one year grant?

- It's a one year grant, so we're going to use it to get it started, get some resources flowing.

I will assign staff to it, because it's so important that we do the deeper services because of some of the issues we're seeing in our community.

And so it became a really important priority, especially after I read the research of children that commit violence, there's truancy in their background.

- Let's talk a little bit about that violence.

Truancy, there's a cost to truancy.

And I think Beth has some numbers that we can talk about, but I'm gonna just, at its core, it's a red flag.

What kinds of issues does it cause for the community?

What should we be aware of that truants may be costing us?

Not in dollar amounts.

- Sure.

- But in what might happen.

Not saying that all truants- - Well, yeah, 'cause we can't say all truant kids are gonna be violent.

Yeah, I would never say that.

Whew, that's a good question.

- For instance, and many truants just stay home 'cause they're babysitting younger children.

- Sure, sure.

- Or they don't have the shoes.

They're embarrassed.

Anxiety, they don't like the large classroom.

And we'll talk about alternative schools in a minute.

But some of 'em get into the wrong crowd.

Maybe they say, well, "I'm tired of sitting at home, I'm gonna wander," and all of a sudden, vandalism.

"Got away with that."

Then a little shoplifting.

There's a cost to that.

- Yeah, well, it's unfortunate, first of all.

I believe a small percentage of some of the kids that are truant may engage into negative behavior.

The ones that we catch and identify, our job is to encourage them to stick to positive behavior.

And we try to get 'em back engaged in school.

We offer mentoring and after school programs to take up some of the time outside of school in case they get a little antsy to do something else after 2:30.

- Do you visit the Juvenile Detention Center?

- [Carl] Every couple of weekends.

I go out there on Saturdays.

- Your job actually extends into weekends?

- Well, no, I volunteer out there, yeah.

- But you do this as part, really, as part of your job.

- Yes, yes.

- And what do you find there?

Why do you go to JDC?

- Well, the small percentage that I don't find, unfortunately, some are out there, and for various reasons.

So, I go out there to give them hope, invite them back to school, and offer some additional services to help them out.

And mentoring is one, and I actually assist out there with some of the programming on the weekends.

- Let's talk about mentoring.

Is there a component where a mentor will make a difference for some families?

- I think so, and that could certainly be a part of the truancy advisory board.

We're starting this from the ground level.

So, if having a mentor come up alongside the parent, the child, to support them... My office offers birth to three services for new moms that are parenting infants or that are pregnant.

Anything we can do to come up alongside the family and help make them successful, we wanna keep them out of the JDC.

We want positive outcomes for the kids.

It's good for all of us.

- There's a cost associated with truancy or chronic absenteeism.

And I don't necessarily mean a dollar amount, but how is society impacted?

- But there is a dollar amount too.

It's all of the different sectors.

It's the dollar amount that that student won't earn because they don't have the high school diploma, much less anything beyond high school, so there's a dollar amount.

There's the potential dollar amount if law enforcement has to be involved with this truant.

There's the cost to society.

When kids aren't reaching their potential, it's a moral imperative.

We want them to lead a productive life.

We want them to enjoy all the things that we enjoy.

And it's so difficult when you are knocking on these doors and finding barriers from them coming to school that are just so beyond what you could fathom.

It's just truly, we must intervene to give them a fighting chance.

- So, looking into the future, if a child is truant, doesn't do well in school, later in life, they may not be contributing financially to the community.

- If you wanna go to a pure economic dollar amount, if you have a high school diploma, you are going to contribute as a taxpayer.

If you don't, you tend to be someone that drains taxes for the services that you need.

But I also think it's just so much more than that, that we need everyone's brain power.

There's so many problems in our world today that need to be solved, and we need everyone's brain power.

And I just think about those lives, with the barriers, of brain power that we're wasting because of so many things in their way from being successful.

- Carl, it occurs to me that there can be days that you're sitting there going, "Oh my word, I need five more of myself."

- Mm-hm, and about five more hours in a day.

- [Beth] Yes.

- So, on the positive side, what gives you hope?

- Oh, man.

When the kids start coming to school.

Graduation day gives me hope, at a middle school level and at the high school level.

I just stay encouraged because... And then I don't let whatever's going on with me, if I didn't get enough sleep, it's not gonna show in my work.

So when I knock on the door, I've got that pleasant smile.

"Hey, how's it going today?"

And they're going, "Oh, yeah, I know," you know?

So I kind of, like, you know, bring a little bit of sunshine.

That's what I try to do.

And keep them inspired, get the mom inspired.

Try to encourage the young man.

And then sometime, if the parent needs parent accountability or needs a mentor or a coach, then I'll refer, you know, refer 'em to services as well.

- Am I correct in assuming that you have to look at each individual success and say, I helped this child get back in school and on the right path?

You may have a whole bunch more to get to, but you have to celebrate that success as it comes.

- One at a time.

One child at a time and one moment at a time.

And then it's a team effort, like I said, with the staff that's inside the school and the secretary taking the phone calls.

And then I've got two other, two or three other family liaison staff that works at both schools, Manual and Peoria High.

So, with them doing a lot of the inside works, that takes a lot of caseload or heavy lifting off of me when I'm knocking on the doors as well.

- A bright point for you?

- You mentioned alternative schools earlier, and there's some unique approaches here in Peoria County.

And these are kids that by the technical definition in the law would be dropouts.

And they get that second chance.

And I've been to their capstone presentations at the end of the year.

Went to five of them last year.

All five of those children, seniors, graduating, had been impacted by gun violence in our city, watching younger siblings, didn't have a new outfit to wear to graduation, which, you know, we've mentioned that several times here and we don't think that that's such a big deal.

It is when you're embarrassed of how you look.

And just the barriers that these kids have had to overcome that I never had in my life, it's awe inspiring.

It's not just hope.

It is unbelievable the resiliency that our children have here in Peoria County.

They've overcome a lot.

- Mm-hm.

- Alternative schools, Carl, before we taped this program, you were talking about how some of the kids, they get these anxiety attacks because they can't handle the larger environment of 1,000 kids in a high school, or 30 kids in a classroom.

- Sure.

- Are alternative schools helping, at least in some ways?

- Yes, absolutely.

You have Knoxville.

I think it's eight to 10 a class.

And then you have Peoria Options, Peoria High Options, which is around the same, 10 or 12 students.

And also have Manual Options.

And Game Changers is designed to keep a small setting as well, and they've been real successful.

- Definition of Options?

- Just an alternative.

Well, it's an additional option to graduate from high school.

- But you have to be 17 years or older and were not gonna graduate, you simply were not going to graduate with your age group.

And that's how you qualify for Options.

And they have a different curriculum and they teach the kids life skills as well.

And then they're required to do a capstone presentation.

I'm very involved with that program, it's one of my passions, and I just think that that program alone has saved already hundreds of children who would not have graduated.

- Without it.

- So, Options is a small classroom.

There is one teacher teaching all these, you know, math and English and et cetera, or?

- [Carl] There's a couple teachers.

- There's a few.

- Rotating teachers.

- Mm-hm, there's a few, and then there's support staff that are delivering, we keep using this term wraparound, what is wraparound?

Teaching them how to have a bank account, teaching teaching them how to do taxes.

In their presentations this year, I heard a lot about retirement from high schoolers.

Kids without financial literacy.

They're required to work 15 hours a week in the Options program.

It is a requirement to be there every week, that they turn in their work.

So, they get them jobs and teach them how to have and keep jobs.

So it is a really awesome program.

I'm extremely proud of being involved with that.

- And let's finish up the conversation, Carl, with the wraparound.

Trewyn has the wraparound center.

- Yes, it's right there.

- How important is that in your role as the attendance connector?

- Well, it's definitely essential having it because they have...

I think OSF Strive is in there, and they're helping with the mental health, when we have kids that are going through depression, anxiety, like we mentioned earlier.

(coughs) Excuse me.

We can refer them to those services.

And when our young people, some that are previously in JDC, when they get out, there's a respite program down there as well, which allows them to reintegrate back into their classroom from juvenile detention.

- So, real briefly, Beth, this is a case of the community needs to come together to make sure that we reduce the truancy rate and help society in the future.

- Peoria is resource rich and has a lot of people that wanna help.

Let's get them connected to the families and the children that need it.

- And with that, the conversation we hope will continue in your household.

But for now, let me say thank you to Carl Holloway.

- Thank you.

- He's the attendance connector for Peoria Public Schools, specifically at Manual and Peoria High.

- Yes, sir.

- [H Wayne] And also to Beth Crider, who's Superintendent of the Regional Office of Education for Peoria County.

- Thank you.

- Thank you all.

And we'll be back next time with another edition of "At Issue".

We'll be talking about decolonization.

That's where we're going to talk about what Dickson Mounds is doing to try to correct the cultural effect of colonization in the past, on the next "At Issue".

(upbeat music)