Officials meet on truancy

• By KIMBERLY VETTER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Sep 3, 2009 - Page: 1B

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While officials and residents met Wednesday to discuss how to combat truancy in East Baton Rouge Parish, law enforcement authorities plucked truants off the streets and took them to school.

Sheriff’s Deputy John Knapps took one Broadmoor Middle School student to the Sharp Road campus after the boy’s mother called law enforcement and told them her son refused to go to class.

Deputies picked up another teenager outside an apartment complex on Monet Drive. The 16-year-old hasn’t attended school this year and was taken to the Prescott Truancy Center where counselors tried to determine why, said Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Casey Rayborn Hicks.

“I can promise you that law enforcement will do its part,” said Sheriff Sid Gautreaux. “But we can’t do this alone. It’s going to take all of us.”

Gautreaux was one of several officials who spoke at Wednesday’s meeting about combating truancy in the parish. The meeting is the third that Mayor President Kip Holden and District Attorney Hillar Moore III have held on the issue during the past six months.

Moore and Holden started talking to residents in April about opening a center that would help consolidate a fragmented system that struggles to keep children in school.

A link between truancy and juvenile crime prompted the discussion, Holden and Moore have said, citing statistics that show 56 percent of the crimes committed by juveniles in the parish last year occurred during school hours. Nearly half of those crimes were the work of children with high truancy rates.

No decisions have been made on what would be housed at the center, where it would be located, how much the center would cost and where that money would come from. But officials at Wednesday’s meeting said Holden and Moore have their support.

U.S. Rep Bill Cassidy said he would do his best to influence federal policy that might affect efforts in the parish regarding truancy.

“There is no right or left in terms of facts,” said Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, adding that the problem of truancy is a worthy cause that needs addressing.

Joe Salter, former house speaker and current director of governmental affairs for the Louisiana Department of Education, offered support on behalf of state Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek and the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

“I’m impressed with the information I’ve seen and the work that’s taken place,” he said. “The task before you is crucial.”

Holden and Moore said they are pleased with people’s support and enthusiasm and that they will continue to analyze the parish’s truancy problems and potential solutions.