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School's Cool: Tough Love Truancy Ticketing No More!
The Los Angeles Police Department is moving away from their "tough love" practice of truancy sweeps during the school day to working on giving students encouragement to attend school, according to the LA Times. Rather than write tardy students tickets as they straggle their way to the hallowed halls of academia, those students will first be asked "if they have legitimate explanations for not being in class."
Though this may give students one more chance to practice their cat-ate-my-homework or "Officer Krupke" genre of excuse-making, it is intended to create more balance "between discipline and counseling," for the students.
Those opposed to the practice of ticket writing say that method of punishment, along with the heavy fines, "are exactly the wrong method for achieving better attendance."
Said one student who had been ticketed in the past: "It's more of a waste of time than helping us out. It's just a bad experience for anyone. It's scary too," reports ABC7.
Truancy ticketing data published by the Times shows that during 2004-2009, of the over 47,000 tickets issued in the Los Angeles Unified School District, 88% of them went to African American and Latino students. "And not one of the more than 13,118 curfew tickets issued by the school police went to a white student," note reform advocates.
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