Stars

According to Attendance Works.com, every year, one in 10 kindergarten and 1st grade students misses a month of school with excused and unexcused absences. By middle and high school, the rates of chronic absence are far higher. Starting in kindergarten, these absences can affect academic achievement, especially for low-income students unable to make up for lost time, research shows. They can leave children unable to read well by the end of 3rd grade, exacerbating the achievement gap. And they can set a pattern of poor attendance and academic failure for older students, fueling the dropout rate. Truancy has been identified as one of the early warning signs for other juvenile delinquency problems as well as social and educational. Youth who are truant from school are more likely to engage in other risky behaviors as well. These youth appear to engage in early sexual intercourse, underage drinking, drinking and driving and riding in a vehicle with someone who has been. The largest impact on society from truancy is the risk of dropping out of school

Strategic Tracking Attendance Reporting System (S.T.A.R.S.) initiative is a collaborative, comprehensive, and preventive effort to improve the growth of students educationally, emotionally and socially. This program is designed to move away from a traditional punitive approach in dealing with excessive absences to a problem-solving program. The STARS program works with students with truancy and/or chronic absenteeism as well the families of these students. The program is designed to meet with students and families to address the attendance concerns as well as the reason behind the absences. The program utilizes a staffing team consisting of the County Attorney’s office, school personnel and local mental health providers to help engage problem solving. The team provides intervention and communication to ensure the proper services are addressing the student and/or family needs. STARS has referred and utilized community resources such as: individual therapy for students and families, after school programming, school and non school related activities as well as organizations within the school setting. The STARS program also incorporates rewards and incentives for the students as well as the families when they are meeting their individual goals of the program. These rewards have included food certificates, school related items, alarm clocks and many other items of interest to the designated age groups.