Memphis mayor’s truancy feedback rankle MSCS officers

Memphis-Shelby County Faculties officers hit again at Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s latest feedback linking rising truancy and declining enrollment to juvenile crime.

In his weekly publication Friday, Strickland mentioned “the challenges our group faces with the shortage of punishment and intervention for juvenile offenders,” and shared enrollment and truancy knowledge that he cited as proof that folks and households have “allowed” hundreds of teenagers to drop out of or skip faculty.

District knowledge launched in Might reveals practically 30% of MSCS college students had been chronically absent from faculty final yr, that means they missed 10% of college days or extra. It marks a bounce of virtually 10 share factors over pre-pandemic years. And in January, district knowledge confirmed enrollment shrank by practically 4,000 college students from the earlier yr.

Strickland additionally criticized MSCS for terminating its relationship with the district legal professional’s workplace to implement truancy legal guidelines and claimed the district stopped referring any instances to Juvenile Courtroom.

“That is unacceptable. Mother and father have to be held accountable for his or her youngsters’s attendance at college, and I hope that the brand new superintendent will use all authorized means to carry mother and father and kids accountable,” Strickland wrote. “The massive improve in juvenile crime is definitely immediately impacted by extra teenagers out of college with out supervision, training, and profession plans.” 

However MSCS leaders on Wednesday characterised Strickland’s remarks as inaccurate and missing context, saying enrollment decreases are occurring at massive public faculty programs throughout the nation as a result of pandemic. And on a neighborhood stage, MSCS officers mentioned enrollment is down as a result of households have extra instructional choices to select from because the district has expanded its constitution, digital, and particular faculty choices.

District officers additionally defended their strategy to truancy, saying it follows state legal guidelines and finest practices that target addressing the foundation causes of a scholar habitually lacking class slightly than on criminalizing college students or mother and father by getting prosecutors or the Juvenile Courtroom concerned.

Shawn Web page, chief of educational operations and college help for MSCS, mentioned many district households battle with meals or housing insecurity if a father or mother loses their job or their household is evicted — traumatic occasions that occurred extra typically throughout the pandemic. Consequently, college students could miss extra faculty than standard.

“If a scholar is truant, we strive to determine what obstacles are inflicting the truancy, take away these, and help the household,” Web page mentioned. “When college students don’t reply and we’ve to go to that subsequent stage, we’ll. … Solely then will we report one thing to Juvenile Courtroom — once we’ve gone by the processes and steps.”

The district referred over 400 college students to the courtroom in 2021, Web page mentioned, and a couple of month into the present faculty yr, the district has already remodeled 300 referrals.

Samantha West is a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, the place she covers Okay-12 training in Memphis. Join with Samantha at swest@chalkbeat.org.