Report: California elementary school truancy crisis persists

California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris on Friday released the second annual report on truancy in the state’s elementary schools. The report provides new research on how students of color and students from low-income families are missing a disproportionate amount of school each year.

The report, “In School + On Track 2014,” outlines recommendations to reduce state truancy rates.

“California elementary school students continue to miss school at unacceptably high rates,” Attorney General Harris said. “Improvements in education policy are moot if students are not in class. California needs common sense solutions that help parents and educators reduce elementary school truancy.”

The full report, which includes information broken down by school district and county, is available here.

Findings of the report include:

A quarter of a million elementary school students in California missed 10% or more of the 2013-2014 school year.
In the last three years, school districts have lost over $3.5 billion directly from student absences.
1 in 10 school districts reported they do not know their chronic absence rate for the 2013-2014 school year.
Almost 90 percent of the elementary students who are missing over a month of school per year are from low-income families.
More than 1 in 5 African-American students is chronically absent -more than double the average for white students.

On the Central Coast, the following findings are included:

Monterey County’s elementary school truancy rate was 18.35 percent during the 2012-2013 school year, an increase of 2 percent from the 2011-2012 school year.
Santa Cruz County’s elementary school truancy rate was 26.25 percent in 2012-2013, down from 29 percent the previous year.
San Benito County’s rate was down to just under 18 percent, down from 21.6 percent the prior year.

Attorney General Harris has introduced the Every Kid Counts legislation, which is aimed at addressing and correcting issues of truancy in the state.