This office has worked very closely with the Duval County School Board, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, and the City of Jacksonville to develop a comprehensive truancy initiative. In the spring of 1998, Jacksonville police officers began aggressively picking up truants off the streets and transporting them to designated attendance centers. Students transported to a center are turned over to a school official or truancy center employee so that patrol officers can quickly return to the streets. School Resource Officers or Law Enforcement Coordinators at the centers contact the parents of the truants. The parents must pick up their children and return them to school. Students not claimed by the end of the day are transported to the Juvenile Assessment Center and ultimately to the juvenile shelter, if necessary. Both parents and students are educated on the importance of attending school as well as the social and legal consequences of staying out of school. Since we began the initiative police have picked up 15,000 truants. During the 1998-1999 school year, the number of juveniles arrested for residential burglary in Jacksonville dropped thirty-five percent! Since most home burglaries occur when the residents are gone during the day, this drop clearly indicates that removing truants from the streets has an immediate impact of daytime juvenile crime.

Parents must do their part. On October 31, 1995 and October 31, 2000, fourteen State Attorney investigators conducted "Operation Trick or Treat." Beginning at 5:00 in the morning, they made arrests throughout Duval County of juveniles ordered by a judge to attend school and parents who failed to send their children to school. School officials told us on both occasions that the next day was one of the best days ever for attendance. In the past seven years, we have had 9 similar operations. Our investigators have arrested a total of 105 deadbeat parents for not sending their children to school. Our goal is not to put these parents in jail, but to get the children back in school. However, several parents in our Judicial Circuit have been sentenced to jail for failing to send their children to school.

On February 22, 1996, United States Senator Bob Graham spent a day working in the State Attorney's Office. As a part of his workday program, he conducted a TAP hearing with a mother and her three young children, none of whom were attending school. Senator Graham explained the importance of an education to the mother and after the hearing her children returned to school.

Our efforts to reduce truancy were recognized by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice in 1995, when we were awarded a grant to enhance our program.  The grant funding allowed us to hire two full time employees to spearhead our truancy reduction efforts, including a truancy investigator who assists in the prosecution of parents when appropriate.  When the grant ended in 1998, this office continued to fund the program. We also asked for and received the cooperation of the Duval County School Board, which continues to supply us with a social worker position.

In an effort to expand our truancy program, we applied for and received a $98,000 grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in the spring of 1999. Through this award, we have added three case manager positions and another investigator to the program. We also have money to pay for truants and their parents to receive counseling and tutoring as necessary. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the grant is funding that enabled us to sponsor Jacksonville's first truancy symposium. This symposium titled, "Jacksonville: Working Together to Stop Truancy," was held November 15, 1999 and was attended by more than two hundred professionals who work with truants on a daily basis. Topics covered ranged from truancy laws to social services. Program participants also heard from incarcerated juveniles about how their problems began when they started skipping school. In August 2000, we conducted a similar symposium for members of the faith community and another was held for the business community in May 2001. Additionally, three public service announcements for local television highlighting the negative impact of truancy were developed in 2000. Two of these focus on parental responsibility for school attendance and one is aimed at teenagers who skip school.

Another exciting result of the grant from OJJDP was the formal creation of Jacksonville United Against Truancy (JUAT) which was formed in 2000 by community leaders to coordinate the city's efforts to reduce truancy in our schools. Jacksonville United Against Truancy is composed of representatives from the State Attorney's Office, Duval County Public Schools, City of Jacksonville, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, Youth Crisis Center, Lutheran Social Services, and the Jacksonville Housing Authority. In addition, BellSouth and Burger King have joined JUAT as corporate sponsors. Jacksonville United Against Truancy operates with existing staff and funding from the partner agencies and organizations and is dedicated to assuring that our children stay in school. In its first year, Jacksonville United Against Truancy developed a public outreach campaign to inform students, parents and the community at large about the serious consequences of excessive absenteeism from school. This outreach included Jacksonville's first Truancy Awareness Month in October 2000. During this month, JUAT members attended a variety of community events and provided families with information on truancy and the importance of staying in school.  Truancy Awareness Month has since become an annual event, but has been changed to September, closer to the start of the school year.

We am committed to reducing truancy. Since we began our initiative in 1998, over seventeen hundred truants and their parents have attended TAP hearings. Over five hundred juveniles or their parents have been ordered to participate in counseling, tutoring programs, or parenting skills classes. Over ninety percent of the students who attend TAP hearings return to school within four days of their hearing. Our efforts have proven very successful thus far. It is our goal and intention to continue to make every effort to keep our children in school.

Please contact this office with any questions.

State Attorney's Office
Truancy Arbitration Program
Program Director
(904) 630-7554