Truancy Success in Queensland

In 2009, the Australian town of Beenleigh began to work against a known truancy problem within their schools. At the time, an average of fifty students a week spent their days “wagging,” the Australian term for skipping school.  A partnership was created between local schools, businesses, and the police department called the Beenleigh Together Against Truancy program.

 The new truancy program involved the schools’ administrators, a coalition of local businesses promised to help work against the problem, and a full-time truancy officer. Businesses that joined agreed to refuse service and report truant students to the police department. The new truancy officer traveled to areas identified as “wagging hotspots” or visited businesses that reported students. Students he found were returned to school. (Australia does not impose fines for truancy, but will withhold some forms of public welfare if a child is found truant multiple times.)

                Beenleigh is a small town located in the Australian state of Queensland; its total population is roughly 7,500 people. The town’s small size worked to its advantage. For one, the limited population allowed the appointed truancy officer to personally return students to school in a very direct method of combating truancy.  Our population here in York would have made this tactic unfeasible: York city itself has a population of nearly 44,000. The greatest benefit was that local businesses were easily united against truancy. By September of the 2009 school year, 140 businesses had signed on. The first year of the program saw an 80% reduction in truancy.

                Beenleigh’s story is a great example of how a community can come together to work against truancy. Although some aspects of the program may not work in other communities, a few of the concepts could apply elsewhere or here in York. For instance, businesses close to schools with high-truancy rates could be brought together for the purposes of identifying and reporting truant students. All community issues are best tackled by the community at large and Beenleigh applied this concept to great success.

By Derek Shaw

 If you’d like to read more about Beenleigh’s truancy program check out their website:

http://www.beenpcyc.org.au/Templates/truancy.html

Spring Grove class of 2020 starts out on the right foot!

The Spring Grove Area School District, in partnership with Glatfelter Co. and the Truancy Prevention Initiative, sponsored a team day for the 4^th grade students.  Currently these students attend three elementary schools within the district and will merge into a single 5^th grade class at Spring Grove Intermediate School for the 2012-13 school year.  This event offered a tour of the Intermediate School and several team building activities.  Students were assigned to mixed groups from the various elementary buildings.  Due to the growing drop out concern across the nation, districts and community business partnerships are collaborating to support students as they transition to the upper elementary and middle level grades.  Truancy issues often stem from a lack of connection to the school community, low self-esteem and difficulty making new friends.  The team day activities generated discussions within the groups related to working with others, diversity and acceptance.  The Spring Grove Class of 2020 is off to a great start!!!

Parents: Looking for summer activities?

It's summertime (obviously) and you know what that means- PLENTY of free time. This is usually highly desired, but if you have kids, free time can mean planning things to occupy their time. Older children can get a job, even if that is babysitting or lawn work, but younger children need activities that expend some of their energy or keep them engaged.
If it's hot out then try to do some water activities whether that may be going to Lake Redman to boat or canoe or trying a local swimming pool or even just setting up a sprinkler and making a fun game out of that. Just remember to get sunscreen on them-and yourself-and reapply every few hours!
If it's a dreary day with rain and high winds then stay inside and make a fort in the living room or spend a day alternating movies or tv shows with books and crafts. You can try baking something or having the kids help make a special dinner that night. Try to find little lessons in every activity or have them help out with tasks increasing in difficulty as they continue to accomplish more.
There are many websites dedicated to finding fun and creative activities for kids to do during any month of the year, but especially summer. Other parents can post on some of these websites and blogs. If you want to look over some of them to get ideas or post fun things that you have done in the past, check out www.pinterest.com; http://greatschools.org/students/summer-activities/68-summer-learning-activities-that-are-practically-free.gs; http://school.familyeducation.com/summer/family-learning/36089.html
You can also try googling a phrase like "fun and inexpensive learning activities for kids during the summer!" Remember to have a fun and safe summer and to keep your kids involved with interactive activities!
By Katie Lamb

Career Mapping........ for First Graders?

Did you know that half of all states require students to create an ‘Individual Learning Plan’ as early as middle school? ‘Individual Learning Plans’, also known as ‘Student Learning Plans’, are computer based programs that allow to students to create a portfolio of their work and grades, as well as guide them in selecting classes based on possible career paths. These programs are 100% controlled by the student and also allow students to research careers and organize their college search.

School officials are finding the purpose of these plans has become two-fold. Having a ‘plan’ for mapping and completing courses has helped ‘at-risk’ students to visually see the ‘road-to-graduation’ as a path set before them. Having made this plan and marked milestones along the way, students begin to develop a sense of personal accountability in terms of their school career. It can help these students decide a career path, even if college is not the goal for them. For college preparatory students, having a ‘student learning plan’ helps them to create a virtually limitless portfolio of grades, test scores, art work and any other information they wish to add. It also helps these students select the appropriate courses they may need based on possible career paths in which they have indicated an interest in. Often times, students will be prompted to enroll in ‘advanced placement’ classes based on a possible career choice. While student-led learning plans were often thought of as a ‘reform strategy’ in the past, state policy makers are beginning to tout the concept as way to drive career and college readiness.

Student-led plans are just beginning to gain some real momentum, though some significant strides have been made in terms of making program software available to all students and in some cases, mandatory.  Typically, students begin working on their ‘plans’ as early as middle school by taking career surveys which give students a broad idea of the kind of career path that might interest them. However, U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., recently introduced a bill to pilot a project in which students beginning in 1st grade could start portable online college-planning and -savings accounts.

Still there are many issues that need to be addressed such as funding for software, licensing, technical support and training.  Policy-makers hope that by making these student-led plans mandatory, funding will be made available to better train educators on how to help students properly develop their plans use the software effectively. “Kids are saying the plans helped them to know the process and it challenged them,” says Shelly Landry the leader counselor in the office of secondary transformation in Minneapolis school district’s guidance and counseling department. ““It opens their eyes to careers they hadn’t considered and just the idea of going to college.”

Video Game Implications in the Classroom: A Changing Paradigm

In their 2007 article “Violent Video Games as Exemplary Teachers: A Conceptual Analysis”, Douglas and Ronald Gentile discuss the implications of video games on learned behavior. Much like the popular belief, they discovered that “playing more frequently during a given week over multiple years was correlated with greater hostile attribution and arguments.” While the aggressive association with video games has not changed, their learned behavior associations were recently turned upside-down by researchers Ulrika Bennerstedt, Jonas Ivarsson and Jonas Linderoth.

In their study of video-game behavior, the researchers found that video games assist in the development of collaborative skills. Much like the school playground, gamers that are overly aggressive or inconsiderate do not do as well; comparatively, the best gamers are strategic and technically knowledgeable. Furthermore, the success of video-games also offers several lessons within the classroom. In their original research, Douglas and Ronald Gentile compiled the following list of lessons for the classroom:

               1. Teach fewer concepts, but require that students master and then overlearn them;

               2.Connect those concepts (via a spiral curriculum) to past and future learnings via continual review and practice, as well as reminders of the connections;

               3. Reinforce (extrinsically with grades and intrinsically with perceived self-efficacy) increasing levels of competence or automaticity, depth of understanding, and analytic or creative  applications of these concepts;

               4. Invent more ways for students to experiment with identities relevant to their studies; and

               5. Use technology where appropriate to provide practice toward automaticity in a game-like atmosphere.

In the following video, researcher James Paul Gee discusses the learned behavior and positive outcomes of video games. His discussion on the theory of learning through video games offers a great compliment to the recent research arguing the positive outcomes.

Youth Court Alliance

Did you know that less than 5% of the world’s population lives in America, yet we account for 25% of ALL incarcerated persons worldwide? Every year our juvenile justice system is virtually flooded with an influx of new inmates,  at a rate of 51,000 per year in Pennsylvania alone.  With this number on the rise each year, officials from both the justice and education systems have come up with a new idea that just may help…Youth Court.

What are Youth Courts? Youth Courts are an alternative disciplinary system that are operated by trained youth, either in a school setting, in the community or as part of the juvenile justice system.  Here in York County, ‘Youth Court Alliance’ (YCA) was developed for students who are being fined for excessive truancy. If students admit to the accusation of truancy, they may elect to participate in Youth Court Alliance, rather than sit before a District Judge in traditional Magisterial District Court. The current York City Youth Court Alliance itself is comprised of upperclassmen from William Penn High School who have volunteered to serve as members of the court in roles such as judge, bailiff, jury foreman and jurors. Students receive legal training and hold hearings to determine the appropriate consequence for truancy.

So does it work? Yes! Not only does it work, it also provides an enriching experience for all involved. Youth Court Alliance allows students to build on their public-speaking and problem-solving skills. It also provides them with a voice to express their own ideas about justice as well as serve as a platform for developing leadership skills. It’s also cost effective. Florida reports an annual savings of $50 million per year by utilizing youth courts instead of traditional truancy hearings with District Judges present. 

The York County Youth Court Alliance is wrapping up its first year so statistics on cost-savings is not yet available.  But, of the 35 cases the students have heard in just three months, 30 of them have been successful or are on their way to being successful.  The Youth Court Alliance, right now, is only for truant ninth graders.  Yet our Members indicate that they think it should be expanded to other grades.  The current program is funded by the PA Commission on Crime and Delinquency and funding does exist for us to expand to additional grades over the next year or two.  York County Youth Court Alliance anticipates expanding to two additional school districts, Hanover and Southeastern.  This expansion is funded by the York County Human Services Division.  We will keep you updated on progress!!

Organized RECESS?

Ask a group of elementary students what their favorite part of the school day is and chances are you’ll likely hear ‘RECESS!’ from a majority of them. Educators agree: recess is an extremely important part of a student’s day. It gives students a chance to cut-loose, run, play creatively and just plain get some energy out. Recess is the time of day when students engage in the majority of their social interactions and, consequently, when the greatest amount of social conflict occurs as well. 

Playworks, a non-profit organization based out of Oakland, California, was developed to help bring structure to recess and therefore reduce the amount of conflict on the playground. Playworks provides what they call a ‘recess coach.’ The ‘recess coach’ helps students to start playground games and encourages everyone to get involved by coming up with creative ways to pick teams, such as by birth month rather than by popularity. If conflicts arise, the ‘recess coach’ also comes up with creative but simple ways to settle disputes as well. A favorite among elementary students is the ever-popular ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors.’ Forty percent of teachers whose schools participate in the Playworks program report that students will often use ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ to handle disputes when they come up in the classroom as well.

 A study that was published this week by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation also found that having more structured recess also greatly reduces the amount of time it takes students to transition from recess back into classroom time. Teachers report that students are calmer and more ready to get back to work, then without structured recess.  “Playworks is a pretty common-sense approach” says Nancy Barrand, the foundation’s senior adviser. “It's really about the school environment and how you create a healthy school environment for the children," she continued. "If children are healthy and happy, they learn better."

To learn more about Playworks visit www.playworks.org