By Appointing Three New Judges, Jim Foster Is Out to "Control Truancy in Dallas County"

• I'd like to know the cost of catching and prosectuing truants vs. what the state gives the districts... Since its all tax money, guessing its a huge waste all the way around...as the teacher above notes, why force a kid who doesn't want to learn to sit in a classroom wasting everyon else's time and resources....find something they want to learn about such as a trade, a skill, teach them computer skills, and let them learn the history, language skills later when they realize they need it. Another reason we should eb able to take our wasted public school district dollars and spend them on a better program of our own/the studenht's own choosing.

• I would personally like to sit down with these truancy judges. I don't think they get it. They may feel good about truancy orders, but they absolutely aren't solving any problems. In fact, they're creating more. Here's what happens with truancy court orders: the kids show up, wave the paper in my face so I'll sign it, and then, 9 times out of 10, begin to disrupt the kids around them. Multiple times, kids refuse to even pick up a pencil. Some sleep. They don't want to be in school. They hate school. Just sitting there isn't learning. More often than not, they keep other kids from learning. They only go so their parent won't get a fine or whatever. They might play a video game, but that's about all they're willing to do. I have honestly seen it dozens of times; I didn't realize what a problem it was until I became a secondary teacher. Yikes. The problem is a home problem. Forcing them to show up so a district gets the federal funds does nothing but make the truant child and the probably ineffective parent both my problem and, most importantly, the problem of the other kids in the class. Their presence actually drags down society because they derail so many other kids. As for school being prison-like, I didn't realize the point of school was to be entertaining. You're there to get skills so YOUR life will be better. We teachers (most of us) tie ourselves into knots to make things relevant and interesting, but there is seriously a limit. Forcing schools to become babysitters for apathetic, unmotivated, disruptive kids isn't fair to the truant or the other kids. A better solution would be a court order to create at least a dozen vocational-type schools within DISD especially for kids with behavior problems AND their parents so they can all get intensive, targeted treatment while leaving the motivated kids to learn in peace elsewhere.

• truancy bad.(oh-thanks for finding that LostWackys site, love it)

• Hey when you make school not prison-like, people will not mind attending. Treat students like criminals and you will get a nice fat adolescent middle finger. Its the school systems choice. Sad that schools would rather not motivate kids, and treat them like pushover punks. Sounds like schools can't deal with what they dish. Go cry a river.

• @ Michael The judges have a few admins under them to do the paperwork, paper checking, and scheduling, so 1.6 minutes is not a bad number in total The courts handle all schools in Dallas COUNTY, not just DISD. And some school districts are worse than Dallas when it comes to attendance. It's not just honorable goals, it's money. For each day a kid is NOT in the seat, the district loses state funding.

• Let's see, 200 cases a day times 5 courts times 180 days in the school year. Damn, we gotta lot of kids skipping school. 180,000 cases of truency for a district with around 160,000 kids. Nice.

• 200-300 cases a day? That is justice you can believe in - for about 1.6 minutes a case.

TotalComments: 7