Evanston students who frequently miss school could face a $100 fine if the City Council passes a proposed ordinance making truancy illegal.
The law would give students who miss at least 10 percent of the school year an opportunity to meet with a Community Accountability Board made up of school officials, social service providers, police and the student’s family, said Cristina Cortesi, a counselor at Evanston Township High School. Cortesi, who is a member of Restorative Justice Evanston, the group that proposed the law, said if students and their families declined to participate in CAB proceedings, they would receive a ticket of up to $100.
“Our goal is to never write that ticket,” Cortesi said. “That ticket would serve as a pressure point. It’s more about providing an environment for adolescents to come together in a circle and talk instead of just being punitive.”
There is already a state law against truancy, said Patrice Quehl, a member of the Evanston Police Youth Services Bureau who also worked on the proposed ordinance. But there is no such law at the city level.
The law would give ETHS one last chance to intervene before truant students passed out of the school’s hands, Cortesi said. Currently, ETHS calls home every time a student misses school and sends letters to the families of students who are consistently absent. If the problem persists, school counselors and truancy officers meet with the student, and then the case is referred to the Suburban Cook County Regional Office of Education. When that happens, students often get lost in the system, Cortesi said.
“Generally the school year’s over by the time we would have an intervention,” she said.When Restorative Justice Evanston first proposed the law at a Human Services Committee meeting in July 2009, council members questioned whether the city should get involved in what some called a school issue. Ald. Lionel Jean-Baptiste (2nd) said he was concerned about the cost and difficulty of enforcement and voted to put the measure on hold. But in January, the Human Services Committee revisited the proposal and passed it 5-0. The council will likely take a final vote in May, said Ald. Delores Holmes (5th), who also serves on the Human Services Committee.
Jean-Baptiste said he decided the law could be useful as a tool for promoting the well-being of Evanston’s youth.
“We had to make sure we were doing the right thing and that the process we set in place didn’t allow for abusing the rights of the young folk,” he said.
While Holmes voiced concerns about the law creating more work for police, pressure on police would be minimal, Quehl said. The district’s truancy office, not the police department, would issue tickets. Only school resource officers would be involved in CAB.
“I think keeping kids in school should be the responsibility of the entire community,” Quehl said.
Ald. Mark Tendam (6th), another Human Services Committee member, agreed. The law would help the city address the larger issues that students who miss weeks of school are usually confronting, he said. He said he suspects it will pass.
“I think that it’s a good ordinance,” he said. [email protected]
