Officers Trolling For Truants New Program Targets School Skippers

The teenagers scrammed when they saw it.

A Spokane police van with bars on the back windows rolled towards them. Inside, Patrolman Sean Nemec flicked on the lights.

“Look at ‘em go,” he said of the students herding across the street to Rogers High School, where they should have been in class Monday.

It was the first day of truancy patrol, a new program launched by police and Spokane’s School District 81 to target school skippers.

The program puts Nemec and another officer, Larry House, on the street full time picking up hookey-playing students. They’ll cruise parks, drop in at fast-food restaurants and take strolls through the mall or arcades - a whole list of potential hang-outs.

Youths caught skipping go straight to the new Truancy Center set up at Havermale Alternative School on West Knox, where counselors and security officials make the students’ day “as boring as possible,” said Kathy Renner, the center’s manager.

“We hope this is a place they won’t want to come back to,” Renner said Monday, motioning around the room. “It’s not supposed to be entertaining or interesting or fun.”

Instead, the student will wait in the room while Renner tries to call their parents. A relative must pick up the youth by 3 p.m., she said. Then she schedules a meeting at the child’s school with the principal and parents.

If relatives can’t be found, other social agencies are called to provide shelter and other services.

Police Chief Terry Mangan said the program won’t change habitual offenders, but may help police find youths who violate parole. Those will go back to jail, he said.

“Kids who have juvenile records a mile long and families who don’t give a rip, this program isn’t going to help them,” Mangan said. “What we want to do is help catch the ones who are just starting to test the limits and provide some intervention early on, before problems start.”

Day-time crime and truancy rates have dropped drastically in other cities where the program is used, he said. In most cases, 60 percent of the youths never again are seen at the truancy center.

“We get them before a pattern is formed,” Renner said, adding that the truant youths get attention from school officials after their first trip to the center.

Lt. Glenn Winkey said having uniformed police do the work usually gets parents’ attention right away.

“It’s a higher level of contact when we can say, ‘Your child was picked up today by a police officer for skipping school,”’ Winkey said.

Youths caught playing hookey on Monday were let off with a warning. “Next time, I’ll have to take you to the center,” Nemec told a cigarette-smoking 16-year-old on East Wellesley. “I don’t want to have to do that, OK?” The boy nodded.

Police did bring one child to the center, though. Nemec spotted the freckled 10-year-old pushing an empty grocery cart along East Trent. A green backpack was flung over his shoulder.

The boy said he showed up at his alternative class at Bryant Elementary but no one was there. His parents didn’t know the class had been moved to a different school, and the boy got lost trying to find his way home.

Nemec drove him to the center, where his worried mother picked him up.

“I told you we’d take care of you, bud,” Nemec said, patting the boy on the shoulder.

Later, Nemec went to Rogers High School and inspected the passes of two girls who said they go to school at night. While he did, a boy he’d arrested twice for dealing drugs walked by.

The 17-year-old met Nemec’s gaze. Then he said he was going straight to class, that he was just late.

“You’re going to school now?” Nemec said to the youth, eyes wide. The boy grinned. “That just makes my heart feel warm inside.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo