GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Mayor Bloomberg chose a rare day off for city students to launch a new effort to study ways to stop truancy.

A new city task force led by the mayor’s chief policy and strategy advisor, John Feinblatt, will investigate how to improve the city’s anti-truancy policies. A key goal is to track student academic and attendance data to determine which students are at risk of chronic absenteeism and notify their parents. The task force has been assigned to figure out the best way to make that goal reality.

One in ten city students is absent from school on an average day, and research shows that nearly three-quarters of students who are chronically absent in sixth grade eventually drop out of high school, city officials said.

The city is billing the mayor’s announcement as the “first-ever task force” to address chronic absenteeism and truancy, but the city has a checkered history of attention to the problem. Currently, the city runs a small “Attendance Court” program in three schools, offering around 45 chronic truants counseling and occasional tough talk from a judge. (more…)