5/7/08

Suburban News

Khalila Perrin

For some, playing hooky means beating boredom. For others, it’s about dodging bullies or overwhelming schoolwork.

Student have their reasons for cutting class, but some local officials think they may have found a remedy in the pilot program Keep Engaging Youth.

The truancy mediation initiative, which began in December is winding down its first season in operation with a evaluate this week of its success rate using figures compiled by Community Research Partners.

City, county and school leaders hope the figures will tell whether KEY is worth keeping in Columbus City Schools, or even worth duplicating in other Franklin County school districts.

Preliminary statistics show “encouraging numbers,” said Edwin England, the program’s coordinator.

“As of the end of April, 214 (mediations) have been completed,” said England. In just three months, the mediations resulted in 153 goals attainments, according to the BREAD Organization, which first began developing the KEY concept two years ago.

The immediate goal is to get at-risk elementary and middle school students to attend school every day for 60 days once they’ve attended a KEY mediation. Mediators, parents, students and teachers work together to establish attendance goals during the one-time sitdowns.

The city of Columbus, the Franklin County Prosecutor’s office and Franklin County Children Services are just of a few of the local organizations pooling resources for KEY. The Franklin County Department of Jobs and Family Services provided $300,000 to fund the initiative.

Columbus City Schools provided $100,000 worth of in-kind services, including data managers, substitute teachers to cover classrooms as teachers attend mediations and school counseling staff hours.

The Educational Service Center of Franklin County administers the program.

So far, backing from the county, city and school district has netted positive results, said England.

“We’ve seen a range from a 36 percent to a 76 percent decrease in the rate of unexcused absences following mediations,” said England, who also works with BREAD, a church-based community group made up of more than 50 Central Ohio congregations. The group takes on a new community related-issue each year.

Watching the decrease in truancies through mediation “leads me to believe, it wasn’t that kids just didn’t want to go to school,” said Quay Barnes, chaiwoman of BREAD’s education and youth committee.

“Our expectation is … the data will just confirm what we know — that these programs are effective … in driving down crime rates (and) drop-out rates,” added England. “Once we see that we’ve got a model that’s working, we think that other districts will want to adopt this model … and bring it into (their) particular buildings where they are having attendance problems.”

From the city’s perspective KEY helps keep students out of harm’s way, explained Moses Hubert, Columbus’ deputy director of public safety.

“When kids are not in school, they get in trouble,” he said. “We don’t know if they’re the ones doing things (that are) nefarious. But we do know if they’re in school, we can say they’re in school and they’re not causing problems outside in the community.”

KEY begins where organizers hope students’ trip down the wrong path will end — after three days of unexcused absences. That’s where Franklin County Prosecutor Dan O’Brien steps in.

“His major role is to send letters to families warning them that their kids’ actions could result in concerns for the family,” said Hubert. “One stipulation with that letter is that they need to receive mediation.”

Organizers hope KEY’s mediation focus continues to build a bridge between parents students and teachers.

“The key is that it opens the door of communication with the school. It may be that that parent … hasn’t ever met the teacher of their student. (At the middle school level) we try to find the teacher with a special connection to the student” to participate in the mediation, said England.

Once the door is open, the mediator then develops a plan to help the families get their children back on track.

Advocates from the county ESC then set up follow-up meetings and link families to resources to help students meet their attendance goals.The encouraging numbers were a result of having city, district, county and local organizations all “at the table” said Barnes.

“It’s a coordinated effort. Before this there were programs, but no one was actually looking at each other’s program,” said Barnes.

Both England and Barnes said they’re hopeful the program will return beginning in the fall.

“We’ve seen a range from a 36 percent to a 76 percent decrease in the rate of unexcused absences following mediations.”

–Edwin England