Truancy Sweep Conducted
Posted By Ron Littlefield on March 20, 2009
San Bernardino – Officers from the Rialto Unified School District Security and Rialto Police Department conducted a truancy sweep on Thursday, March 19, 2009. Director Jerry Sturmer and Officer Dave Chavira organized the sweep. The officers made contact with approximately 48-50 students and ended up citing 11 students for daytime loitering. One of the students cited for loitering was also found in possession of a small amount of marijuana. Those students who were cited were taken to the security office to wait for their parents to pick them up.
While waiting to be processed, each student was counseled about the importance of attending school. In addition, representatives from Juvenile Intervention Program (aka JIP), Juvenile Probation, the Department of Behavioral Health, CART Academy, and the District Attorney’s office spoke to each family about available programs to help get these students back in school and on track for a successful future.
JIP is a modified scared straight program run by the Sheriff’s Department. For more information about JIP, please contact Frank Navarro at 909-387-3700.
Juvenile Probation enrolled parents of difficult teens into its parent project. Probation also enrolled truant students into its 6-week truancy program. The truancy program helps youth understand the relevance of school. For more information about classes offered through Juvenile Probation, please contact Manuel Baltierra at 909-387-7347.
CART Academy is a 16-week character building military style program run by Colton police officers on Saturdays. Each week guest speakers speak to kids about different topics such as gangs, ethics, how to create a resume, drugs, alcohol, etc. For more information about CART Academy, please contact Cpl. Rich Randolph at 909-370-5000.
In addition, representatives from the Department of Behavioral Health (DBH) offered support to relatives or family friends who are helping to rear difficult teens whose parents are not in the picture through its Kinship program. In addition, DBH distributed handouts regarding its Success First program and Children’s Crisis Response Team. For more information about programs or services offered thru the Department of Behavioral Health, please call 909-421-9410.
A representative from the District Attorney’s Office Juvenile Division was also available to discuss its Let’s End Truancy Program (LET) and the legal consequences of truancy for the students and their families.
For more information about the LET program, please call 909-387-6985.
Recently different agencies, including the District Attorney’s Office, have started working together to address truancy. Truancy leads to drop outs and being a drop out leads to poverty and/or involvement in the criminal justice system either as a victim or a perpetrator. 82% of prisoners today are high school dropouts. 78% of prison inmates started their criminal careers by being arrested for truancy. In addition, 57% of violent crimes committed by juveniles occur when they are supposed to be in school. District Attorney Michael A. Ramos commented, “With statistics like these, it’s critical that the entire community work to resolve the problem of truancy because it impacts us all.”
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