Truancy Committee
Steve Snodgrass, Chair
331-4700
Ralston Public Schools
Next
general meeting of all members is scheduled for Friday September 26, 2008,
8:30am, in the conference room of Heartland Family Service at 42nd
and Center. Please park in the Center Mall parking
lot across the street.
The
truancy committee continues to work toward finding solutions to truancy and to
advocate for a best practices approach in the community. Follow the links below to download
documents in use and created by each of 4 subcommittees listed below. Each subcommittee focuses on different
aspects this complex issue.
Primary Prevention: Cultural strategies - to support
regular school attendance, building and community wide prevention efforts,
public awareness
Secondary Prevention: Individual/Family strategies - for
schools and agencies, determining root causes of chronic absenteeism and
appropriate assessment and interventions.
Pre-Court Intervention: Behavioral strategies - uniform
reporting procedures and interventions, truancy patterns, case planning.
Justice Intervention: Social strategies –
multisystem strategies, procedures, pilot programs for cases in the juvenile
justice system.
Please
contact the committee chair to become involved!
Making Attendance a
Priority – Steering and Subcommittee Overview and Reporting Update
School Refusal Assessment
Scale (SRAS)- Revised, Child Version
School Refusal Assessment
Scale (SRAS) – Revised, Parent Version
Truancy and
Excessive Absenteeism: A Best
Practices Manual for Schools
Excerpts
from the Manual:
4 Quadrant
Model: Causes and Contributors
4 Quadrant
Model: Interventions for Schools
Attendance
Intervention Record
Top 10 Reasons,
a bi-fold flyer for schools
Intervention
submission form
Nebraska Flow
Chart
History
In
September, 1999 MCAC created an additional committee, a Truancy Task Force, to
examine the need for understanding and working with issues of excessive school
absenteeism and truancy. With
involvement from the Douglas County Attorney – Juvenile Division, School
Social Workers, Community Agencies and the Nebraska Department of Health and Human
Services, the Truancy Committee researched and published a best practices
manual for schools. In 2001 the
manual was distributed to school Principals in all public and parochial schools
in Douglas and Sarpy County.
With a
recent membership total of over 60 representatives from Douglas and Sarpy
Juvenile Court and County Attorney Offices, School Districts, HHS, Juvenile
Probation, Omaha Police Department, Juvenile Assessment Center, University of
Nebraska Omaha, the City of Omaha MayorŐs Office and many community service
agencies, we are poised to become a model of best practices and innovation in
the area of truancy and school refusal.
