SA school truancy problem sees experts called to help in for 5000 ‘chronic’ offenders
SPECIALIST social workers have been called in to help schools that are struggling to keep thousands of chronic truants in their classrooms.
SPECIALIST social workers have been called in to help schools that are struggling to keep thousands of chronic truants in their classrooms.
Teachers are demanding more staff and resources to help schools deal with “chronic non-attendance” before the most difficult cases — students who miss at least one day a week, without permission, for a term — have to be referred to head office.
The Advertiser can reveal that in each of the past three school years, public schools have had to seek assistance from the Education Department’s expert “attendance and engagement social workers” for a total of 4945 chronic truancy referrals.
Other cases are dealt with in-house, butschools seek specialist help for the most difficult cases.
Australian Education Union SA president Howard Spreadbury said more needed to be done to help truant students and their parents.
“Chronic absenteeism is most often linked with learning and/or behavioural problems, so it affects those students who most likely need additional assistance and aren’t receiving it due to lack of resources,’’ he said.
“There are not enough department Behaviour Support Coaches and Special Educators to assist in supporting students with additional needs. They are spread too thinly across DECD to meet the growing need.’’
The union also wants:
MORE attendance officers to investigate why the students are not at school.
FASTER assessment of students with disability or additional needs.
FULL-TIME counsellors in every school.
South Australian Secondary Principals Association president Peter Mader said the department was working with interest groups to strengthen the assistance to chronic truants and their families.
“There is recognition from everyone that we are getting much better at recognising truancy, we are getting better at the school level of follow-up but we really need further assistance at the next level which is the most chronic and difficult cases,” he said.
Department of Education and Children’s Services chief executive Rick Persse said all schools were required to have an “attendance improvement plan” but 46 experts were available in the department when this didn’t work.
“Part of their role is working with families where there are issues affecting the child’s ability to access school,’’ he said.
Mr Persse said the problem was first tackled at school, where quality teaching and effective teachers who created strong student engagement, was the best way to tackle the problem.
“Schools have a strong influence on a child’s attendance through quality teaching and learning,’’ he said
“Teacher effectiveness coupled with student engagement in learning are recognised as the strongest determinants in involvement and success in preschool and school.’’
The Education Department voluntarily provided figures to The Advertiser after a request under a new guideline requiring the release of information via an “Administrative Release” policy.
It classifies habitual non-attendance as a problem in which a student has five or more absences per term, an average of one day per fortnight.
Chronic non-attendance is: “Where a student is absent for 10 days or more per term (average of one day per week) then the issues of absenteeism for that school should be analysed for possible chronic non-attendance.
