Absent Student Assistance Program (A.S.A.P)
Absent Student Assistance Program (A.S.A.P.) is a program designed to support educational training and responsibility in Houston Independent School District Middle Schools. It is designed to monitor and identify truant students. ASAP Deputies meet with the parents of truant students to see if the problem can be resolved. Parents not in compliance can be issued citations.
What is Truancy?
Truancy refers to students' unexcused absences from school. Concern about truancy typically focuses on these unexcused absences. However, any school absence-excused or unexcused-as well as missed classes and tardy arrivals can affect students negatively.
Truancy is a problem in school districts nationwide. Although no national statistics on truancy exist, some metropolitan areas report thousands of absent youth of any given school day. Truancy affects students of all ages, from all types of communities and socioeconomic backgrounds.
What Causes Truancy?
Students miss school for different reasons, depending on the age and circumstances of each student. Research shows that factors contributing to truancy stem from three areas: school family and community, and student characteristics.
School Factors
- Inconsistent and ineffective school attendance policies
- Poor record keeping
- Not notifying parents/guardians of absences
- Unsafe school environment
- Poor school climate
- Inadequate identification of special education needs
Family and Community Factors
- Negative peer influences, such as other truant youth
- Financial, social, medical, or other problems that pressure students to stay home to help the family
- Child abuse and neglect
- Family disorganization
- Teen pregnancy or parenthood
- Lack of family support for educational and other goals
- Violence in or near the home or school
Student Characteristics
- A lack of personal and educational ambition
- Poor academic performance
- Lack of self-esteem
- Unmet mental health needs
- Alcohol and drug use and abuse
What Are the Impacts of Truancy?
For decades, educators, researchers, and social reformers have recognized the link between truancy and delinquency.
Truant students are at risk for many negative outcomes, including-
- Educational failure
- Social isolation
- Substance abuse
- Low self-esteem
- Unwanted pregnancy
- Unemployment
- Violence
- Adult criminality and incarceration
In addition to placing students at risk, truancy has harmful social and financial consequences. Communities with high rates of truancy are likely to have corresponding rates of daytime criminal activity and vandalism. High school dropouts claim more in government-funded social services than high school graduates.
How Can We Prevent Truancy?
Preventing truancy requires the support of schools, families and communities. Truancy prevention efforts and typically school-based, court-based, or community-based. The best efforts incorporate all three components and provide a continuum of prevention and intervention strategies.
Truancy reduction programs may involved one or more of the following components:
- Parent/guardian and family involvement
- A continuum of support, including incentives and consequences for good, improved, and poor attendance
- Collaboration among schools, courts, law enforcement agencies, social services providers, businesses, and faith-based and youth-serving agencies
- Tangible goals to measure program and student performance
- Effective record keeping to track improvements in student attendance and truancy rates
- Establishment of a community standard in which school attendance is valued and expected
The average school dropout costs society more than $800,000 during the course of a lifetime. Cost-benefit studies indicate that truancy reduction programs are inexpensive relative to the cost of students who drop out of school.
Information provided by :
United States Department of Justice http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/
Department of Education http://www.ed.gov/index.jhtml