Establishing a pilot middle school truancy board to help overcome obstacles to education -- Priority Spokane

The Foundation's Roadmaps to Health Community grants initiative was designed to identify, support, and disseminate models of cross-sector coalitions working to improve health by taking action to address the social and economic determinants of health, such as education, employment, income, community safety, and family and social support.Priority Spokane seeks to establish a pilot School and Community Truancy Board to serve the most at-risk students in the six Spokane Public Schools (SPS) middle schools. The Truancy Board will be modeled after a successful high school-based board and will build on the Early Warning System being developed by SPS. By creating a middle school Truancy Board, SPS will be able to address the link between students that have four or more unexcused absences in middle school having a significantly lower rate of high school graduation. The Truancy Board model will include developing a mechanism for determining underlying causes of the truancy and providing support to overcome those challenges. Priority Spokane and its partners will educate the Superintendent and School Board, establish community partnerships and networks among support service providers, the Juvenile Courts, and other community leaders, and will manage the implementation of Truancy Boards in the middle schools. No RWJF dollars will be used for lobbying. Deliverables include training for teachers, counselors and truancy board members, development of Truancy Board model at the middle school level, analysis of policies to support its implementation, and the collection and analysis of data on the Truancy Board which will be shared with state networks, policymakers, and other external stakeholders.

Grant Details

Amount Awarded $200,000.00

Awarded on: 10/25/2012

Time frame: 11/1/2012 - 10/31/2014

Grant Number: 70526