BALTIMORE — Students are fresh into the semester, but Baltimore City Public Schools are already reporting a significant amount of absences, but the school system says they have a plan.
It all starts with a phone call, city schools are directly contacting families about their child's lack of attendance before it's too late.
This past weekend launched their first phone bank initiative. One by one each staff volunteer contacted about 1500 families, to make them aware of their child's unexcused absences in hopes of getting them back into the classroom.
"This is a call of support and partnership, even if you missed last year, the beginning of this year we're here, our jobs are to make sure you get what you need, whether it's the physical, social, emotional academic support that you need, because we really are about making children and students successful so they can go on to be successful in life," said Dr. Tanya Crawford-Williams, Baltimore City Public Schools Coordinator Office of Student Conduct and Attendance.
Many parents think this is a great initiative, Yvette Cooper is a grandmother of a BCPSS student, she goes the extra mile to make sure his education needs are met, but Cooper says she sees a truancy problem in the city.
She expresses that during the day she sees many kids in the streets instead of the classroom.
"Decades ago they used to go into the homes to see what was going on, they cared. It mattered to find out what they could do to help. We don't have that anymore. So I’m hoping this makes a difference. I’m banking and crossing my fingers this makes a difference and that this is the beginning of something new and something that will be continuous," said Cooper.
The school system plans to expand this initiative by hosting phone banks every three months, staff will also expand their language access to ensure various families can communicate and be apart of the change.
"We have a system called language links, which allow us to connect to a translator. We speak to a translator and the translator then translates our message to the family. We also have a support office here in the district office specifically for families that are coming from another country or speak a different language. We also have folks in our office who translate to families as well," said Dr. Crawford-Williams.
City schools say they’ve always contacted families about attendance but this initiative communicates with parents on a larger scale.
