Oldham begins job to help decrease student truancy

The second phase of the Grand Island public schools' "poverty plan" got under way this past week as Chief Deputy Hall County Attorney Michelle Oldham began her new duties for the district.

Oldham will work 18 hours per week -- with that portion of her salary paid by the school district -- in a new program designed to cut down on student absenteeism.

A key part of the poverty plan is the new bus transportation system that provides students with a reliable ride to get to classes each day.

Oldham has an office at Walnut Middle School, but her mission is to reduce student absenteeism in 17 of Grand Island's 18 schools. That list includes all 14 elementary schools, plus its three middle schools, which include Barr and Westridge.

Oldham and Jim Werth, assistant superintendent for student services, will not work on absenteeism at Senior High because compulsory education ends at age 16, an age most students reach as sophomores.

"Frankly, if we haven't reached students by high school, we've probably lost them anyway," Werth said.

In fact, Werth said, it may be too late for some students if absenteeism issues aren't addressed prior to middle school.

Oldham said one reason the district is using a county attorney to work on student absenteeism is that her position means both parents and students know that she has the authority to file charges in court against older students for truancy or against parents of younger students for violating Nebraska's compulsory education laws.

She said there is another good reason for a county attorney to be working on school truancy issues.

"Truant kids are more likely to be involved with crimes such as criminal mischief and thefts," Oldham said. So, reducing truancy has the potential to reduce juvenile crime and be an even greater benefit to the city as a whole.

Despite her prosecutorial powers, Oldham said the aim of the program is to file fewer court cases, not more. Her goal is prevention, not prosecution.

Consequently, Oldham is working with the school district's eight social workers to try to ferret out the root causes for a student to be chronically absent from school.

Werth said the best way to think about social workers is to compare their jobs with school counselors.

"Counselors address problems students might be having at school," Werth said. "Social workers address problems students are having outside school."

That means social workers are more likely to make contacts with parents and student at home, he said.

Even though Grand Island has a new bus system, transportation still may be one reason why students are missing too much school, Oldham said.

Werth agreed, noting the district's bus system is in its infancy. He said it probably does not have enough stops to guarantee that every student who needs a ride to school has access to a district bus.

Parental work schedules may be another reason students are not getting to school, Oldham said. Depending on what time parents must arrive at work, even very young students may be responsible for setting their alarm clocks and getting themselves to school.

For students in a single-parent household with preschool siblings, problems with day care might lead to an absence, Oldham said. If a baby-sitter cannot care for a young child, the parent may have the older brother or sister stay home from school to baby-sit.

Technically, truancy is an unexcused absence from school.

But Oldham said that if a parent is calling in every other day to say his or her child is sick, she and the social workers want to examine that situation more closely. There very well may be something going on other than illness.

Werth said Maury Shellhaas, the district's director of data processing, once statistically demonstrated that if a student misses 10 days of school in an academic year, it greatly lowers the student's standardized test scores.

However, Werth said Oldham and the social workers will look at that issue from another perspective.

"It may be that a student is absent from school because they're not having much success -- and don't like to come to school," he said.

Oldham said she and the social workers have developed procedures for investigating student absenteeism, as well as detailed forms with a lengthy checklist of reasons for student absenteeism. That form also has an "other" box for absenteeism, just to make sure all bases are covered.

Werth said one reason for the standardized forms is to ensure the eight social workers collect consistent information on reasons for students missing school.

That will allow school officials a better chance to design programs to combat situations that cause absenteeism.

Werth said the district has developed internal measures to measure student absenteeism. That will allow officials to see if Oldham and the social workers are developing effective programs to combat absenteeism.

Viewed from one perspective, Grand Island seems to have low student absenteeism in terms of percentages.

But add that time up for a collective 8,000 students, and it totaled 149 missed "student years" in 2006-07 and 139 "student years" in 2007-08.

Oldham and Werth feel Grand Island could be doing some groundbreaking work in Nebraska.

"I have a brother-in-law who's a teacher at Scottsbluff Middle School, and he's excited by this program," Oldham said.


Oldham's duties

Chief Deputy Hall County Attorney Michelle Oldham will continue to do civil work for the Hall County attorney's office.

Deputy County Attorney Jack Zitterkopf will be the attorney for the Hall County Board of Supervisors and will advise half the county's department heads on legal issues.

Oldham said she will be a civil law adviser to the other half of county department heads when she is not working on truancy issues for the school district.