Dear Editor,
The article published Friday, March 18 on truancy reminded me of
when I worked at the Gilroy Unified School District as a community
school liaison.
Dear Editor,
The article published Friday, March 18 on truancy reminded me of when I worked at the Gilroy Unified School District as a community school liaison.
The first thing the school principal told me: “Bertha, we lost $50,000 of Average Daily Attendance money last year because parents do not send their children to school.”
My mission started with home visits, some during the day, others during the evenings.
The reasons ADA money was lost were many. Families that work the fields; take vacations from the middle of December to the middle of January. Other problems were lack of clothes, shoes, funds for food and soap – this problem was real bad with high school students.
Other problems were transportation, the buses were constantly leaving children behind, the reason being the bus drivers’ had a very tight schedule. The schedules that the Gilroy School District sent to families were wrong. I checked every bus stop and timed it, in that whole area, and notified the district about the problem.
We had neighborhood meetings with families, bus drivers, superintendents and myself.
Bus drivers’ hours were extended by 45 minutes so they could have time to make a full stop and give children time to board the bus.
We all know that at the present time both parents have to work and many, many parents work out of town. They leave early morning and come home late in the evening. Children are left alone, if they miss the bus or fall asleep again, they do not attend school and parents will never know unless they are notified.
Classroom teachers take roll call as soon as all the children are in the room. The attendance card is sent to the office right away. There were a number of children going to music classes at another school from 8am to 9am and then return to their regular school. But roll call had already passed. So those children were marked absent every Wednesday for the whole year.
Parents were sick about it. The school lost A.D.A. The children’s records were damaged.
Bertha V. Jacquez, Gilroy
Ex-GUSD and community liaison
