DC Council Considers Sending Truant Teens to Church Services, Not Court

Under current law, students ages 14 to 17 who accumulate more than 15 unexcused absences from school are supposed to be referred to the court’s social services department for possible prosecution. However, the attorney general’s office has declined to pursue these cases and recently acknowledged that it is not equipped to address the root causes of truancy.

The City Council’s proposal would shift that responsibility, along with a $3.38 million funding boost, to the Department of Human Services, which already runs some youth programs. It’s part of a broader proposal that D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) unveiled in April to reduce truancy and require more aggressive prosecution of youth accused of certain crimes, which remains before the City Council.

“I hope this actually moves the needle on the question of whether there is a better approach to managing attendance in our schools,” D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said Monday.

DC’s approach to improving attendance has come under fire as officials struggle to get students, especially teenagers, to come to school regularly. The city’s absenteeism rate — the share of students who missed at least 10 days of school without an excuse — spiked to 42% when kids returned from virtual school during the pandemic in the 2021-22 school year, data show.

That figure dropped to 37% in the 2022-23 school year. Among high school students, however, nearly half of students were absent.

Those trends have come under scrutiny this year, along with questions about how the current system works. Schools are supposed to refer teens to court, but compliance rates are low. Data show that D.C. public schools referred 44% of eligible students in the 2022-23 school year.

“While prosecutions of students or parents may seem appealing in truancy, they make little sense when applied to absenteeism,” Lauren Haggerty, the first assistant attorney general, told lawmakers at a hearing on the issue in June. She added that courts cannot address the reasons why students miss school, such as housing instability or bullying.

“The court cannot provide any of the social services and supports needed to remove barriers to attendance,” Haggerty said.

The emergency and temporary bills would allow the city to test a new approach at five high schools starting this school year. The mayor would select schools that had absenteeism rates above 50% during the 2023-24 school year, according to the legislation.

The measure will also require the Department of Human Services to issue a preliminary report on its progress in March and a final report in August. The program’s success will depend on students’ ability to improve their attendance and academic performance, as well as the teens’ ability to avoid arrest.

“It’s troubling that kids who get into trouble with the juvenile justice system almost always have an attendance problem,” Mendelson said Monday. “That doesn’t mean kids who have an attendance problem always get into trouble with the justice system.”

Despite his intention to introduce emergency, temporary legislation, Mendelson said he has some concerns about the ability of the Department of Human Services, which is responsible for administering social services, to handle that responsibility. He said the agency does not have “a very good track record right now with some of the other programs that they administer, like homeless services and affordable housing.”

Mendelson raised those concerns at the June hearing. Laura Zeilinger, the agency’s director, pointed to recent successes in its youth services division, which works with young people and their families to improve attendance and reduce court involvement.

During the 2022-23 school year, 63% of youth who participated in youth service programs — which include intensive case management known as Parent and Adolescent Support Services, a diversion program or family therapy — improved their school attendance, Zeilinger told lawmakers. Seventy-nine percent of students improved their overall behavioral functioning, as measured by a behavioral assessment.

“I don’t understand why we wouldn’t take the positives that we know work and redouble our efforts in these interventions at a critical time in our families’ lives, to partner with them and support them and their young people as they begin to miss school,” Zeilinger said at the hearing.

If the bill passes and Bowser signs it, the pilot program would go into effect next school year. The council would have to pass the mayor’s April truancy bill or a similar permanent law for the change to go forward.