DA’s office releases video highlighting the importance of school attendance
For release on May 4, 2023
CONTACT:
Alisha Schoen
Deputy District Attorney
Community Prosecution Unit
(408) 808-3766
DA’s office releases video highlighting the importance of school attendance
To raise awareness about the dire effects of truancy, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office is releasing a video public service announcement (with captions in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese) warning parents and school-aged kids about the growing problem.
In the wake of COVID, chronic absence rates from Santa Clara County schools have doubled compared over the previous year, according to the latest statistics.
The new video premiered today to a first-grade class at Barrett Elementary School in Morgan Hill, celebrating with the children and teachers who helped make it.
“Parents or students may ask: ‘What’s the big deal? What’s a single day or two? What’s an hour late? What’s a missed assignment? It’s a big deal,” DA Jeff Rosen said. “Be on time. Stay in school as though your future depends on it.”
Some national statistics that illustrate the problem:
- A first grader with nine or more absences is two times more likely to drop out of high school.
- In School + On Track, The Attorney General’s 2013 Report on California’s Elementary School Truancy and Chronic Absenteeism
- About 82% of prisoners are high school dropouts.
- Attendance is a bigger predictor of high school graduation than are test scores.
- Truancy is the single most powerful predictor of juvenile delinquent behavior: children who are chronically absent have a three-and-a-half times higher likelihood of being arrested.
- Children who are truant are more likely to become involved in crime – as either a victim or a perpetrator.
- Assem. Comm. on Pub. Safety, Analysis of Sen. Bill No. 1317 (2009-2010 Reg. Sess.) as Amended June 16, 2010, pages 7-8.
- Children who are chronically absent are more likely to use cigarettes, marijuana, alcohol and other drugs.
- Children who were chronically absent grow into adults who are more likely to smoke, have a shorter life expectancy, and have poor health.
The DA’s Office is committed to strengthening communities by preventing chronic absenteeism and supporting attendance. To combat the epidemic, our Office, along with the Court, created the first-of-its kind collaborative truancy court, known as CARE, the Court for Achieving Reengagement with Education.
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