Louisiana Parish Focused on Truancy

Caddo Parish, like many areas, is under budgetary pressure. As such, it is struggling to come up with the funds to support its otherwise successful anti-truancy efforts.

It seems clear to these folks, that you can pay now or pay later. Invest in truancy and dropout prevention with small dollars today or pay big dollars later through the criminal justice and social services departments.

As an article in the Shreveport Times observes:

Researchers from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Clemson and the University of Chicago, have researched this issue for decades. They have universally identified three early warning factors — school absences, behavior referrals, and academic failure — that highlights when a student is at greatest risk to drop out of school. Of those three, school absences are the easiest to identify and address. Simply put, by 9th grade missing 20 percent of the school year is a better predictor of dropping out than test scores.