Take a look:
“From 2003 through the present date, many thousands of children in Hampden County are excessively truant from school without excuse and are clearly being subjected to educational neglect and abuse,” Clauson stated.
The lawsuit asks the court to order services to ensure that all children in state custody comply with the school attendance law.
Springfield’s Supervisor of Attendance Timothy J. Duquette said the city’s truants typically include “a substantial number … involved with DSS,” although many are not.
and:
According to Duquette, a stronger collaborative effort might help reduce absenteeism. “I think if DSS, the schools, the courts, get the proper tools … it can be alleviated to some degree,” he said.
The consequences to students for being out of school include being held back, not getting credit for a year’s work in school, and perhaps problems with the law because if not in school, the teen must be “somewhere”.
To wrap it up:
Clauson, who took no fee for filing the recent lawsuit, has a separate case pending in U.S. District Court. Five juveniles sued the Springfield School District in August, claiming that it is illegally taking truant students under age 16 off school rolls.
I’m in college (Salem State) and I see kids all the time hanging around when they should be in school. I don’t think any of them are even 15.
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And these kids friggin walk by cops on the side walks and nothin happens. I’m serious…go to the train station, the Salem Willows, and the shops down town at 10:30 in the morning on a Weekday. It blows my mind. Maybe I just notice this because I was always in school from 8 until 3 every day. But it’s really bad. Is anyone here a cop? There has got to be some reason why cops are not bustin these little friggin pukes.
What these truants need is structure. I don’t think viewing them as “frigging pukes” so much as lost throwaways, who are losing their future and dialing up costs for the future.
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Why didn’t anyone file a CHINS [Children in need of services} petition in a juvenile court?
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Do their parents know where they are? Why not?
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There is a major rewrite going on of the CHINS STATUTE, G.L. c. 119 – will it have provisions that could scoop and structure these throwaway teens and preteens?
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Stay tuned.