Truancy begins at home

WHEN THEY CALL for giving court dates to parents who refuse to deal with their chronically truant children, City Council President Maureen Feeney and at-large councilor John Connolly aren't just playing to the cheap seats. The consequences of erratic school attendance - high dropout, teen pregnancy, and incarceration rates - are simply too dire to ignore.

The proposal that Feeney and Connolly made last week deserves a full public hearing. It is based on a successful effort in Waterbury, Conn., where a probate judge can order a range of supports for families, ranging from extra tutoring for pupils to drug treatment for parents. Though guardianship rights could be challenged in extreme cases, the emphasis is on getting parents to provide the care needed for their children to succeed in school.

Boston school officials are expressing initial support - provided the focus remains on connecting families to social services, not to the criminal justice system. "Tough love" from a judge may be just what some parents need, says Irvin Scott, Boston's academic superintendent for high schools. With four-year graduation rates in Boston at just 60 percent, school officials like Scott know they can't accept spotty attendance, which is a dress rehearsal for dropping out.

How well the district succeeds at retaining students will depend less on any judge's pronouncements than on policies now being shaped at school department headquarters on Court Street. The city now has 16 alternative schools for struggling students, ranging from pregnant girls to students caught with weapons on school grounds. Scott says this approach is not working well. He wants to open a "transition center" during the current academic year where truants, dropouts, and other failing students can receive a 5 to 10-day evaluation to determine a proper school placement.

Boston's alternative education system is due for an overhaul. More work may need to be brought in-house instead of subcontracted to community groups. While special classrooms exist for students with histories of violence, there are too few good options for chronically truant students whose problems may result from ill health or from shame over their inability to keep up with their classmates in district schools. And finding these students and bringing them back to school is likely to require more than the six attendance officers now covering the 56,000 students in Boston.

The courtroom may be the place to start for some families whose children can't find their way to school. But Boston needs to make sure there are destinations worthy of the trip.