As I looked around on the San Jose Mercury News website there where a couple of articles that got my attention. One that dealt with grandparents having to raise their grandchildren as their own for various different reasons and the other dealing with two parents having to go to jail because of their 13-year-old daughter’s truancy problems.
I felt that the article titled “San Jose dad in jail — and mom's on the way — for 13-year-old girl's chronic truancy” was more my style. Since most of my blogs have been about education and the effects of the budget cuts you probably have figured that education is important to me. I also find that education in San Jose, having two school districts San Jose Unified and East Side school District, could be a good topic for my research paper.
The article talks about how a father has gone to jail because his daughter has had issues going to school and how the mother will go to jail after he gets out. The couple is facing jail time because they are being held responsible for their daughter missing school more than the average child. The truancy got so bad that she would only go to school three to five days a year. Making her a 13-year-old fifth grade drop out. The article stated that it is the first time in five years that a truancy case has resulted in incarceration and the first time that both parents have had to go to jail. The parents say that the girl, named Vanessa, doesn’t want to go to school because she is teased for being overweight and can’t be around big groups of people with having a panic attack and passing out.
The part of the article that I agree with is that the parents should be blamed for their child’s truancy issues because it is their responsibility. I agree with the school district trying to send to the family polite letters, setting up meeting with the parents, home visits, and interventions all to get the child to go to school. It all shows that the school is putting in the effort to help the family out. Although I do feel that sending both parents to jail is a little extreme it seems to be effective. Vanessa said that she is willing to go to school if it means keeping her mother out of jail. I also agree with the school district trying to set up some sort of counseling for her, and other students with truancy problems. This also shows that the school district understands that there could be some other reason besides the child being bad for them missing school.
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Wow lizzy, i really like the way you have summarized this article. I can agree with you on the fact that it is too extreme to send both parents to jail. I also believe that children need to always go to school unless they are really sick. Trust me , my little 9 year old brother tries to pull the sick card all the time . lol. One thing i want to say is that, how do you allow you child to only go to school 5 days out of the whole year? that's insane. Well I am also looking forward to maybe reading you research paper. if i can?
ReplyDeleteHave a good night!