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San Luis Obispo County makes the top 5 student truancy list

September 13, 2014

schoolkidsBy KAREN VELIE

San Luis Obispo County made the top-five list of California counties with the highest student truancy rates, according to a report released Friday by California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris.

San Luis Obispo County had the fifth highest rate of truancy of California’s 58 counties during the 2012-2013 school year. Because of its high truancy rates, San Luis Obispo County lost $4.9 million in school funding during the past school year.

The report broke the data down by race, income levels, foster child status and county.

Statewide, almost 90 percent of children who missed more than 35 days during the school year are estimated to come from low-income families. Approximately one in 10 low-income students missed 10 percent or more of the 2013-2014 school year.

Racial disparities also played a role in attendance. Asian students had the lowest levels of truancy while African-American children had the highest.

“Nearly one in every five African-American elementary school students—over 33,000 in total—missed 10 percent or more of the school year, a rate over two and a half times that of white students in 2013-2014,” the report says.

In addition, foster youth are as much as two times more likely to be absent from school than other students. Moreover, foster children rates of absence are likely understated due to the difficulty of tracking foster youth who change schools an average of once every six months.

Because of this and other factors, 51 percent of children in the state’s foster care system fail to graduate from high school or receive a GED.

In the 2012-2013 school year, San Luis Obispo County’s had a 27.45 percent elementary school truancy rate. Mono County had the highest rate of truancy at 41.15 percent, followed by Shasta County at 35.35 and Lake County at 32.82 percent.

Alpine County at 5.36 percent had the lowest rate of truancy in California, followed by Calusa County at 6.32 percent and Napa County at 8.55 percent.

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I don’t know if I am more saddened or disgusted with this information.


We are spending more on education than ever, when you add in all costs: books/ipads, school construction/maintenance, transportation, lunches, afternoon programs, tutoring, special needs, sports, and of course administration and teachers. And this is what we get?


Cuesta, San Luis Coastal, Atascadero, Paso all want more money for their school systems. I say ENOUGH! Show us results for our investments in attendance and academia and then we can talk more bond money, until then, learn to teach and administer.


I feel so sorry for the student achiever. Vouchers are the only way to support the families/students that want to exceed. Maybe peer pressure will help the others.


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Calusa County? Isn’t that in Aregon?


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All you have to do is compare the public school system with the private schools. The level of education and the end results are very far apart. One problem is that children at the private schools want an education and have the full support of their parents part of which is financial while still paying taxes for public education. On the other hand those in the public school system where some want and education and others could care less. Those who want an education are drawn down by those who could care less about an education and are disruptive in the class.

The voucher system would certainly address this problem. Of course the public school system would cry foul because of the money they would lose. But in today’s world we are all getting tired of paying top dollar for defective products-the government. It’s time to turn them in for a rebate.


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This terrible truancy news about our godly creation of children is very upsetting. This is just another reason why ALL TRUE CHRISTIANS should home-school their offspring from our Hebrew God’s bible, where from it’s pages is non-stop excitement and entertainment to keep them inspired for more scriptures on a daily basis, praise!


What better way for your kids to get ready for the real world than to teach them from the Hebrew Yahweh God’s bible, instead of from the lies taught by the public school system by their devil speak science books? As an example, how comical that they teach that man was formed by the interactions of primordial soup in the form of EVILution! We Christians laugh because we know that man was created from dirt, Eve from Adam’s rib, and life began when our God blew into the nostrils of Adam the breath of life and man became a living being (Genesis 2:7).


As a caveat with home schooling, you therefore can take your begats to the Santee, California Creation Museum. In this way, they will learn about the TRUTH pertaining to our universe, dinosaurs walking with man, and where our life beginnings were all created in seven days, and where the earth is approximately 6000 years old and not billions! (Luke 1). http://creationsd.org


Taking our begats to Creation Museums and learning from the scriptures is far better than the public schools with their Devil Speak science and taking them on Satanically imposed field trips to places like the Lawrence Hall of Science, Natural History Museum of LA County, Discovery Science Center, and the University of California Museum of Paleontology, just to name a few!


Fellow Christians, we’re a Christian Nation, so let’s start acting like one, therefore, home school in the name of Christ!


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Lol


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YES indeedy! All that genocide, matricide, infanticide, slavery, and blatant page by bloody

page slaughter and mayhem from the loving Mesopotamiam myth man is just what we need to solve 21st century problems. You and the indoctrinated automatoms like you are one of the principal reasons that more people have been killed, more civilizations destroyed and more clasiical learning and future beneficial research abandoned ergo leading to increased stupidity of the future electorate. I can do no better than our second President:


the social science will never be much improved untill the People unanimously know and Consider themselvs as the fountain of Power and untill they shall know how to manage it Wisely and honestly. reformation must begin with the \Body of the/ People which can be done only, to affect, in their Educations. the Whole People must take \upon/ themselvs the Education of the Whole People and must be willing to bear the expences of it. there should not be a district of one Mile square without a school in it, not founded by a Charitable individual but maintained at the expence of the People themselv[s] they must be taught to reverence themselvs instead of adoreing their servants their Generals Admirals Bishops and Statesmen — Instead of Admiring so extravegantly a Prince of Orange, we Should admire the Botavian Nation which produced him. Instead of Adoring a Washington, Mankind should applaud the Nation which Educated him. If Thebes owes its Liberty and Glory to Epaminandas, She will loose both when he dies, and it would have been as well if she had never enjoyed a taste for either: but if the Knowledge the Principles the Virtues and Capacities of the Theban Nation produced an Epaminandas, her Liberties and Glory will remain when he is no more: and if an analogous system of Education is Established and Enjoyed by the Whole Nation, it will produce a succession of Epaminandas’s, the Human Mind naturally exerts itself to form its Character according to the Ideas of those about it.


♦ Letter from John Adams to John Jebb, September 10, 1785, from Grosvenor Square, London


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Why do you think they are so down on Charter schools, Home schooling, Private….. money.

It’s not about the kids.


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Because school is boring. School is not designed to be stimulating, interesting or challenging for children. It is meant for administrators to pay themselves and the school board to play ego-based power games. And, they hire additional people to gather statistics on how bad it really is. If your child does not feel like sitting all day at a plastic desk with harmful fluorescent lights on them in an environment where viruses and germs weaken their immune system? Drug them. If they get the urge to go play outside in nature….there are medications to get them back in line. They must not be able to pay attention!


WHEN are parents going to see that the “systems” in place need to be changed—–not the children. Children are likely benefiting from being pulled from school to wander in a park or nature, go to a zoo or even play in the dirt in natural sunlight.


You know why this is even being reported? BECAUSE THEY LOST $4.9 MILLION DOLLARS IN FUNDING!!! SUPER-LOUD SMACK—AS YOU ARE SLAPPED!!! WAKE UP!!!! IT ISN’T ABOUT YOUR CHILD——-IT IS ABOUT MONEY AND SALARIES!!!!


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Just wait until (this year) when Common Core is fully implemented. I have two kids in SLCUSD, and in the back-to-school nights, other parents started to realize just how sh¡tty Common Core was when they were presented with “Oh, your kids don’t have books, it’s all online – tests, homework, and study!” (said the young, newly-pressed useful idiot); then a parent or two asked, “and what happens when we’re without internet – away or travelling, heck even a power-outtage?” Silence.


It’s the simple things, really. I can’t wait for them to see how “awesome” this online learning really is! I’ve done the homework with my kids and was aghast at how stupid it is. Condescending and made for the lowest common denominator. No child left behind? No problem, we’ll all stay behind. Race to the top? Sure, as long as the top is below everyone who stayed behind.


School hasn’t been about kids or education for DECADES. Never has. EVERYTHING the government gets involved in is about a select few enriching themselves, scamming others; betraying trust and just generally corrupt and full of malfeasance.


These corrupt, shameful people are only emboldened by the propaganda media who love the status quo, so they can focus on tearing down people they prop up as famous.


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Well said, and this is exactly why we need school vouchers. Let the creative of the teaching world create better learning environments and the money will follow the best ideas. In a couple of decades we could have an entirely new way to teach. But the government unions are against this and will spend tens of millions of dollars to keep their money making machine in place no matter how much the children suffer.


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Then why does the “system” work for Japanese-, Chinese-, Vietnamese-, Ethiopian-, Nigerian-, Jewish-, and European-American students?


School is boring now? They have audio/visual, they have computers, they have all kinds of newfangled approaches. Many schools have gardens. “Playing in nature” won’t let them develop their mind. They do need to learn how to read, write, spell, and do math. The online spelling tests now allow students to take a spelling test multiple times, and there are also “learning games” online, for free.


I bet you a lot of the kids who miss school come from single parent homes, and many are up late at night watching TV. Now we are taking in millions of illegal immigrants from south of our border who don’t know either English or Spanish. They don’t know Spanish! So there is limited family experience with formal education, and how to become educated.


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But the unions love the illegals as more teachers, aides, nurses, tutors, administrators, different types of therapists, etc. get hired and pay more dues to shore up their power base. Just follow the money in almost every government decision!


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Alpine county lowest and Mono County highest? Each of those districts have about ten kids in it. Shouldn’t even be compared to bigger districts.


How dare they break it down by race? That is racist in itself!


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Hyper sensitivity to issues in which race plays a roll by calling racism only hurts the people who you consider to be victims.


The classification of the study by race , income and parental situation is absolutely necessary to get to the crux of the issue.


Intelligent people don’t need studies to understand that if a kid is from a family that values education, the kid will be in school every day he/she is able. Parents will also work with the student to excel in school. Do you wonder why Asians do so well in the US (iCal racism here) -they value education and kick ass at it.


Conversely, what do you think happens To boys when There is no father at home, and the single parent is too overwhelmed by life to vest in the child’s education. A lot of them end up in jail. Is it racism or just coincidence that 70 percent of inmates are black men and 70 percent of black children born in this country are born out of wedlock?


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These are just facts.


The children of General Colin Powell, Dr. Ben Carson, and others do quite well in America. It is the so-called “black underclass” where big issues still remain, and not talking about these issues doesn’t help.


At the school functions I have gone to over the past decades, academic functions are rarely attended to by black families, and black fathers are almost non existent. Yet when there is a sporting event, the families come out in full force. Despite this, I know (friends or casual friends) at least 6 or 7 black doctors from my high school and college days.


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Dollars to donuts says that somewhere close to 75% of the truancy is in north county.


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An acquaintance of mine taught briefly at Morro Bay HS many years ago. He said that the truancy rate there was quite high whenever the surf was up. I would guess that South County also has substantial numbers of truants and not just when the surf is up.


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Is Nipomo, Oceano and Grover Beach in the North County? Just asking.


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Now that we have the documentation it’s probably time to give all of the Administrator’s a pay raise.


After all they did score in the top 5.


No one will even be questioned how or why this is allowed.


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