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California’s Targeted Truancy and Public Safety Program: Preliminary Outcomes Associated with Two School Districts’ Truancy Abatement Efforts

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Abstract

Although school attendance has been mandatory in California for nearly a century, school attendance rates have approached 90% only over the last few decades. Truancy has been a problem since the onset of mandatory education, and nonattendance has always been seen as harmful not only to individuals, but also to the greater society. Recently the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (U.S. Department of Justice), the California Board of Corrections, and the California Legislature have been focusing their attention on truancy as a risk factor, if not as a stepping stone, to criminal activity. Recently, California legislators created a new article in the California Education Code known as the Targeted Truancy and Public Safety Grant Program (TTPS). This paper evaluates truancy abatement efforts in two school districts: one funded through TTPS and the other through the California Board of Corrections

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA

    Michael S. Pobanz, Michael J. Furlong, J. Manuel Casas & Catherine M. Brown

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  1. Michael S. Pobanz
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  2. Michael J. Furlong
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  3. J. Manuel Casas
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  4. Catherine M. Brown
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Correspondence to Michael J. Furlong.

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Pobanz, M.S., Furlong, M.J., Casas, J.M. et al. California’s Targeted Truancy and Public Safety Program: Preliminary Outcomes Associated with Two School Districts’ Truancy Abatement Efforts. Contemp School Psychol 4, 66–79 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03340870

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03340870

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