Truancy Citations

As a children’s neurologist, I see lots of children who have problems in school that are far from all of their own making, or that of their parents or community.

Truancy is a growing problem, not unlike the epidemic of dropping out--the final truancy. When adults or children leave a place where they should want to be, such as home, school, playground or workplace, it is usually because they are estranged. It behooves us to ask if this might be the case, and to look critically not just at the child, his home, family and community, but at his school as well.

Nor is it sufficient to ticket the parent or have a truant officer round up the child and enforce attendance; we must learn why he doesn’t want to go there (“Schools Cite Parents in Hopes of Curbing Truancy,” Jan. 5).

As Lemon Grove Assistant Supt. Joe Farley says, “the citation will not work in cases where there is some psychological or deep-rooted issue in the child himself that is keeping him from coming to school.”

“In the child!” Always “in the child.” Never a mention of what it might be “in the school,” from which our children are fleeing in such epidemic proportions. Thirty percent of our nation’s children--50% of Hispanics and 40% of blacks--become dropouts. In the San Diego Unified School District, in 1988-89, 4% of eighth-graders dropped out. Where do these children, 12 and 13 years of age, go, and why?

Maybe they’re all like Ken, a 12-year-old I saw in my office recently, who is behind and struggling in reading but getting no kindly, patient help. Instead, when he read aloud, struggled to sound out words phonetically, he was derided by his teacher for all to hear. Is it any wonder that Ken is having more and more headaches and missing more and more time from school, a dropout in the making?

I pray for Ken and his parents, who are good, loving people, that “choice” and “vouchers” as an alternative to U.S. public education comes soon, so they can join the 13% of U.S. children whose parents have the wherewithal and have seen fit to buy their children a private or parochial education.

FRED A. BAUGHMAN JR., La Mesa