Attendance & Truancy
Dr. Tina Spears, Director
443-984-1714
Maryland law section 7-301 of the Education Article requires regular school attendance of children between five and up to sixteen years of age. The Attendance and Truancy Office has the responsibility of providing support to students, parents/guardian, staff, and community partners for achieving the highest possible level of attendance while enforcing the Compulsory Attendance Law.
Goals:
- To ensure early identification and interventions for increasing attendance.
- To collaborate and coordinate with families and community partners.
- To engage parents/community in efforts to improve attendance and address truancy.
- To support area and schools with attendance initiatives and programs.
- Identify and implement research-based practices.
- To provide support to SST.
- To review and revise attendance procedures.
- To provide professional development.
- To file statement of charges with the court.
Initiatives:
- Truancy Court Program (TCP) – In partnership with the University of Baltimore School of Law, CFCC, the TCP is a judiciary supervised program that includes weekly in-school sessions with a member of the judiciary team, student, families and school-based staff for providing interventions.
- Baltimore Schools Mediating About Reducing Truancy (B-SMART) – In partnership with the University of Maryland School of Law, C-DRUM, to increase student attendance through the implementation of a Truancy Mediation Program. The meeting consists of a parent/guardian, mediator, and school staff to identify the root causes of attendance issues.
- Curfew Sweeps – in partnership with the police, students under 16 are apprehended form being on the streets illegal during the hours of (9:00 a.m. -2:30 p.m.) and returned to schools.
- Truancy Roundtable – in partnership with parents, DJS, DSS community agencies, City Hall, Circuit Court, Health Dept., Governor’s Office and founders, for developing a comprehensive approach to truancy
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