Rochester City School Board Set to Vote on New Truancy Measure
By: Vanessa Herring
Updated: September 28, 2012
The Rochester City School Board went in to an executive decision late Thursday night to vote on whether police should be used to combat truancy in the district. The measure is controversial among board members. All agree that truancy is a problem, with about 3,000 kids missing class every day. However, board members have to decide if bringing in police officers is the right option.
On the positive end, the action is likely to cut down on the district's high truancy rate, however, some board members are concerned because of the tense relationship between officers and city youth.
Superintendent Blogen Vargas had a lot to say about the truancy problem at Thursday night's board meeting, "if we are going to improve in student achievement by being proactive there's no more important goal in this district than to get our children to read by third grade and we can not do it when we have hundreds of children that don't come to school regularly," said Vargas.
As of 11:30 Thursday night the board had not taken a vote.
