Senator Kamala Harris

There has been criticism levied against the Anti-Truancy Program established by Senator Kamala Harris in 2009 when she served as the San Francisco District Attorney.

The criticism is centered on the complaint that the program aimed to put “poor people” and “homeless people” in jail, characterizing Harris in the worst possible light. My goal is to set the record straight with the facts.

However, I want to preface this with a rather long personal experience that directly relates to the topic of truancy. I ask you to indulge me.

In the summer of 2010, my husband and I became court-appointed, non-relative guardians of a little girl who had just turned 8 years old. She moved in with us three weeks before school started here in Central Florida and she was about to enter the 3rd grade.

When I received a copy of her school records so that I could register her in the elementary school less than mile from our home, I noticed that in her first three years – kindergarten, 1st grade and 2nd grade – her absences averaged 40-plus days per school year. Some stretches – consecutive weeks.

Now, this was not due to a little girl deciding to duck school unbeknownst to her family. She was living in the home of her paternal grandmother – who had legal custody of the child since she was 10 months old – along with her father and his older brother.

Both brothers had records of over 40 felony arrests each, spanning their entire adult lives. Offences ranged from DUIs and drug possession, to various levels of larceny plus a slew of misdemeanors. When convicted (and they were not always convicted) they each served sentences of a year or two, usually released early. Then they would return to the home where the child lived and start the cycle all over again.

Their mother, the girl’s grandmother, was in full-blown co-dependency with her sons, though she favored her eldest, the girl’s uncle, who was an intravenous drug user. Hers was a story of textbook co-dependency.

Her legal, court-ordered responsibility to get her granddaughter to school was not a daily priority for her. More often than not, her main “job” was driving her eldest son to his dealer and paying for the drugs – several times per day. Even on the days when she got the kid to school, several times she failed to pick her up end of day. Since the child lived too close to qualify for the bus, the school principal would take her home.

Grandma was not “poor.” She owned the house they all lived in. She owned a rental property next door to that house. She also owned and collected rent from a three-family home in Queens, NY, the major source of her income.

Gradually, over the final 10 to 15 years of the woman’s life, after selling off assets and emptying savings to pay for her sons’ bail, lawyers and hefty court fines, she had nothing but the home she lived in, which she then mortgaged more than once to keep her sons’ addictions supplied.

By the time the court was investigating removing the child from the home, because a neighbor made a phone call, Grandma’s home was on the brink of foreclosure and her only income was Social Security plus a “food stamp” debit card funded by the state to feed the child. Many times, her eldest son bartered that debit card for drugs with the full knowledge of grandma.

This child suffered medical and dental neglect – even though the state footed the bill for her healthcare through the Sunshine Kids program. It seemed no one in that home could bother to take her to a pediatrician or a dentist for a check-up — even though it cost them nothing out of pocket. Worse — the grandmother lived across a two-lane street from a medical center with office of doctors, dentists, and other specialists, who accepted state insurance for children.

As you can imagine, in addition to gross neglect, this child suffered extreme mental, emotional and physical abuse living in that house. The details of specific incidents could fill a few chapters in a book. But I won’t get into those itemized horror stories, here.

(Aside: if anyone reading this assumes this is the sad tale of a neglected child of color, please know this child is white.)

When I registered her in the school down the road from us, they looked at her test scores and quickly scheduled more tests. A couple weeks into the school year, her 3rd grade teacher called me in for a private meeting during the time period when her class was in the art teacher’s room.

She broke the news – this little 8-year-old barely had a first grade reading level. She could barely write her own name or recognize basic words. She was only slightly better at math. Then the teacher informed that that, with the 3rd grade being a mandatory “leave back” year, the child would not and could not be promoted to the 4th grade at the end of the school year.

“There’s no way she can pass the FCAT reading test in the spring.”

Now, I knew the child was naturally smart. And, given her home situation for the first 8 years of her life, her instinct for self-preservation had made her more mature than the average child her age because she never had the luxury of being a carefree kid.

I told the teacher, “She will pass the test.”

She eye-rolled at me, “It’s not possible.”

Later, I picked the kid up from school and, after milk and a snack at home, I gave it to her straight. She burst into tears. She was devastated that she would be left back. She told me kids at her new school were already calling her “stupid” and getting left back would prove them right. She expressed deep, painful self shame – the way she cried can only be described as mourning for her own future.

After a long hug, she calmed down. I told her – together we could prove everyone wrong. And if she was willing to partner with me doing extra work to improve her reading – after school and on weekends – I had no doubt she would pass the FCAT and get promoted the 4th grade.

I told her it would not be easy. I explained she would be doing extra work after homework on school days and on weekends instead of playing outside or watching Hanna Montana on TV. I also told her the choice was hers – because I could not and would not force her into doing the extra work.

“So, what’s your decision?”

After a two-second pause she said, “I’ll do the work.”

And work she did. I had her read aloud to me virtually every spare moment. While I was cooking dinner. While I drove the car with her beside me. In stores, I asked her to read signs for me, can labels, those little free recipe cards they give away at the grocery store. I used the phonetic method of teaching her to read the way I was taught back in the 1950s. Because, as someone who holds a minor degree in secondary education, I knew it offered the fastest route to get her up to speed.

When reading at home, when she didn’t know what a particular word meant, I made her look it up in a hard copy of the dictionary instead of online – because flipping through the book, alphabetically, required she did more reading and enabled her to look up root words at well.

If we were away from home and she encountered a word she didn’t know while reading, we wrote it in a little notebook I carried in my bag and she looked it up later.

My husband and I made a point to use “big” words when speaking with her. And when she said, “I don’t know what that word means.” Out came the dictionary.

There was only one time she resisted. And it wasn’t really resistance, just a little meltdown in a book store. I pulled a kids’ novel from the shelf that was about 100 pages long and she blurted aloud, “It’s gonna take me a year to read that book!”

Then she plopped on the floor, cross-legged and cried into her hands. I sat down on the floor beside her which, for some reason, she found quite funny and the meltdown ended.

I estimated it would take her, tops, a month and a half to finish the book and told her so. Then I bought the book and wrote the date inside. She finished it in just under a month, in addition to all the other things I had her read – newspapers, magazines featuring her favorite music stars, comic books, and downloads of previous 3rd grade FCAT reading tests so she could get the hang of it.

It was a heck of a lot of extra work and she took it on like a trooper. Truth be told, there were days when I just wanted to kick back and watch Hanna Montana with her. Together, we kept on pushing.

Happy ending? Yes, she passed the reading test which required a 2.0 score to be promoted. She nailed a 3.5 and it was off to 4th grade. Her teacher, the same eye-rolling woman who told me her passing this test was simply not possible, said to me: “I don’t know how you did this but the kudos goes to you.”

Frankly, it pissed me off. I told her, as I’ve told others over the years who’ve attempted to toot my horn for me – the kudos goes to the little girl who is now a 16.5 year-old young, college-bound woman with a 3.8 GPA taking AP courses in her junior year of high school.

She was only 8 years old, a victim of abuse and severe neglect, yet still she embraced a goal and did a massive amount of work to achieve her goal. Me? I was simply a coach who recognized her potential and gave her a chance. If she had not chosen to “show up” and give it her all, she would have been left back and still believing the kids, and her own family members, who called her “stupid,” were right about her.

What does this long personal story have to do with Kamala Harris’ Anti-Truancy program in the City of San Francisco?

I know why. I knew why even before I read articles and interviews in which Harris explains the reasons for the program.

Because excessive truancy is a red flag indicating something is severely wrong in the homes of children who miss 30 or more days of school each year.

For the 8-year-old who came to live with us there were several red flags over the years.

Red flags the state Child Protective Services missed.

Red flags teachers and the school principal missed.

Red flags the Florida state healthcare system missed.

It seemed to me no one legally responsible to protect this child did their job until one neighbor made repeated calls in 2010.

One day, after the child was with us a couple of months, I received a call from the her former caseworker after office hours. She made the call because she saw the kids’ case come up on the state computer system when it was reopened. The woman called me, secretly, from her home phone, because she was wracked with guilt and explained that this child, and other children like her, were the reason why she transferred to an administrative position years prior.

In 2003, when the child was placed with the grandmother at 10 months old, this woman was assigned to make home visits over the year-long preliminary guardianship period when visits are mandatory.

She told me the family never allowed her inside the house. The best she could do was have a family member bring the child to the door so she could lay eyes on her for a minute or two. That’s on the days when they actually answered the door.

She explained why she abdicated her responsibility – the child’s father and uncle scared her. She was in fear for her safety and the safety of her own family. I have no doubt they intentionally intimidated this woman. I had firsthand experience in how they wielded intimidation – including death threats against me and my husband.

She ended her voluntary confession saying: “I’m so happy they took her out of there and placed her with you. I’m sorry. I should have done more. For her. For so many.”

Once permanent guardianship was awarded to the grandmother, with the child just shy of 2 years old, the case was closed and no one came to visit.

When she was placed with us in 2010 and we took her for a medical checkup, we discovered she was severely behind on state mandatory immunizations. How is this possible when the state covered her medical needs? How is this possible when schools require proof of immunizations? Worse – her records show she never, ever went to a dentist. More red flags ignored.

When someone at the courthouse mistakenly me mailed a stack of police reports related to her family, I discovered how often police were called to the grandmother’s house.

I read with my own eyes at least a half dozen officers’ reports requesting child welfare checks over the years, including notes that the grandmother was likely being exploited by her sons. More red flags. No one came.

Not until one neighbor, whose identity was never revealed, made several reports alarmed by the dirty, skinny condition of the child who “never seemed to be in school.”

Let’s Look Closer At The Facts Of Harris’ Anti-Truancy Program In San Francisco.

The Truancy Assessment & Resource Center (TARC) mobilizes the combined resources of the Mayor’s office, the San Francisco Unified School District, Department of Children, Youth & Their Families, Urban Services YMCA, community-based organizations, the San Francisco Police Department, Huckleberry Youth Programs and the District Attorney’s office towards helping youth stay in school until graduation.

Consolidates Truancy Intervention Resources into a “one-stop” location where students and their families can receive assistance from a variety of City agencies and departments, all working collaboratively.

Addresses Individual Psycho-social and Academic Needs to keep students on track towards completing school.

Engages Students for Re-introduction to the classroom.

Offers Referral Services to community-based organizations that may support in the truancy prevention action plan.

Provides Follow-up for tracking students’ progress.

Utilizes Legal Resources to address chronic truants.

See: http://www.sfusd.edu/en/programs-and-services/truancy-intervention/overview.html

More Facts From a VOX article, Feb 7, 2019. quote:

As San Francisco’s district attorney, Harris spoke of truancy in strong terms, writing that “a child going without an education is tantamount to a crime.” Her office pointed to statistics showing that more than one in four students in San Francisco public schools were truant. …

With these statistics in hand, Harris moved to do something about truancy with a new initiative, which remains in place in San Francisco today. The goal was not to threaten all truant kids’ parents with prosecution; Katy Miller, who helped implement the program as a prosecutor under Harris, said that it’s meant to use a step-by-step process of escalating intervention and consequences to push parents to get their kids to school.

And the cases that get to prosecution are extreme — typically parents whose kids have missed more than 30, 60, or 80 days out of a 180-day school year. Miller had one case in court in which a child missed 178 days.

When a student is regularly truant, the school district first gets involved by sending out letters to parents telling them that their child is missing class. Then, the school can call parents into a meeting with school staff and sometimes support service providers to figure out what’s going on. The next step is a meeting with the school attendance review board — where various government agencies and social services, as well as school staff, can be present — to figure out what might be contributing to the truancy. That meeting typically concludes with a contract that dictates who’s going to do what to make sure a kid can get to school.

If all of that fails, the school can refer the case to the prosecutor’s office, which can threaten prosecution if there’s no progress on attendance. The thinking, Miller said, is that by then a parent has already been offered help but clearly needs an extra push to take it and improve a child’s attendance. And if a parent agrees to take steps to improve a child’s attendance, the charges are dropped.

Before the program, the prosecutor’s office was, for the most part, not involved in truancy cases. But the purpose wasn’t to criminalize having a truant kid, said Miller, who’s now chief of alternative programs and initiatives at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office.

The prosecutor’s office typically allows the school district’s process to play out before it gets directly involved. Miller said that, when she was still a prosecutor under the program, she rejected some referrals from the school district because the district hadn’t first taken enough action on its own.

At most, 20 parents have been prosecuted in a typical year, Miller said, and none have been jailed….” <-SEE UDFATE. Vox was incorrect.

The policy may have worked. In the 2007-2008 school year, 4 percent of students, or more than 2,200, were considered chronically truant. In 2010-2011, that had fallen to 2.5 percent, according to San Francisco Unified School District data. Habitual truancy rates and overall truancy rates also fell….”

See: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/2/7/18202084/kamala-harris-truancy-prosecutor-president-2020

The Big Questions:

If Florida had a similar truancy program, would the child whose early life I’ve shared with you been helped sooner?

I don’t know. What I do know is that it would’ve established another checkpoint in which someone employed by the state would have been required to report her absences to the DA’s office.

Maybe some investigator for the DA’s office would have noticed how thin and disheveled she was or how many school breakfasts and lunches provided for her by the state had gone uneaten.

Would such a program, with the threat of jail time, inspire the child’s grandmother, her legal guardian at the time, to address her responsibilities?

I don’t know. At the very least, the woman would have been brought into court to explain why the child missed so many days of school, year after year after year.

What I do know. What I deeply believe, is said best by Senator Kamala Harris, “A child going without an education is tantamount to a crime.”

I fully agree.