Truancy Task Force A First For City
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A new city task force is aiming to keep public school students in class.
The initiative is the first of its kind, and will develop a set of programs to reduce truancy and chronic absenteeism.
The task force will help students at all grade levels, but focus on early intervention in elementary and middle schools.
Strategies will include developing a system to alert parents, and ways to engage and support students and families.
"Three out of four students who are chronically absent in the sixth grade never graduate from high school. Truancy is also strongly associated with other outcomes that makes it harder for young people to succeed as adults. Delinquency for example and poverty, teen pregnancy and substance abuse all go together," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The heads of several key city agencies will be part of the task force, and examine success models from across the country.
The first set of initiatives will start this fall at the beginning of the school year.