Truancy: old problem for new school year in Cabell County - WOWK 13 Charleston, Huntington WV News, Weather, Sports

Cabell County School leaders began the school year sending letters to nearly 2,400 students who had 10 or more unexcused absences last year.

Talking about the importance of being at school.  As a new school year begins they plan to broaden their approach to the truancy problem.

"We are going to look at the middle schools and we'll do the same as we did with the truancy court with the high schools.  We'll take the worst offenders with truancy at the middle school level ... and bring them into the court process," said Sherri Woods, director of Student Support Services for Cabell County Schools.

Cabell County Judge Paul Farrell said the court system is the last step in dealing with truancy.  He's hoping to involve the Department of Health and Human Services earlier in the process and to also target younger students and their parents.

"The purpose is so that the parents don't let the children be truants," Farrell said. "I don't feel good.  I'm not going to school.  I'm simply refusing to go to school.  We had children say that.  Their parents would come in and say they refuse to go to school.  That's where the parents need to understand for a third grader to say that, that's just not acceptable."

"There is some bullying going on in the school system," Woods said. "It's hard to catch because usually if you are bullied you don't like to tell someone because you are afraid of retaliation.  Some kids may be afraid to go to school.  We need to know those things too."

School leaders said truancy is a problem that's not going away anytime soon, but they hope to make a dent in the problem this school year.

Thursday, Farrell is scheduled to hear 60 truancy cases from last school year, he said.