Call To Truancy Line Gets Girl, 15, Enrolled In School For First Time

The caller to the Chicago schools’ special truancy line wanted to ask a hypothetical question. What would happen to a parent if her 15-year-old daughter were not in school? In several days of coaxing conversations, the mother acknowledged the truth: Her daughter had never been to school. In fact, the girl hardly went out of the house.

This week, the girl went to school for the first time.

“She knows her ABCs. She knows her colors,” said Maribeth Vander Weele, chief of investigations for the Board of Education. “She learned her days of the week by looking at a calendar. She’s a shy child, very isolated. She wants to learn. She wants to be a teacher.”

Schools officials are not sure why the mother never sent the girl to school, aside from a few days of kindergarten, and why no one reported her absence before now. The girl’s 26-year-old brother attended public school and is taking college courses.

Her 8-year-old sister is in second grade, and the mother has been conscientious about that daughter’s schooling, picking up report cards and attending parent-teacher conferences. The father has not been with the family for several years.

The mother, who is unemployed and on public assistance, told officials that she feared for the safety of her teenage daughter, who would have to walk through their rough South Side neighborhood to get to school. But she allowed her youngest child to attend a neighborhood school.

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services will evaluate the family, including the mother’s mental state.

Officials have not identified the family publicly.

The girl has no physical or mental disability, officials said, although she does need glasses. Nor does she appear to have suffered any abuse. The home was clean, and the girl was well fed and clothed.

It appears unlikely that the mother will face a criminal charge of educational neglect, officials said.

The girl told officials that she had gone to the grocery store, but had mostly stayed at home. She studied some with her younger sister, officials said.

This week the girl sat in classes so she could get used to being with other children. Officials chose to place her in junior high school, for now, because that age group seemed most appropriate. She is being evaluated but will need intensive remedial instruction. Thursday, after The Chicago Sun-Times publicized the case on the front page, an anonymous donor offered to pay for tutoring.

“It’s amazing that in this day and age you can have a child who has gone 15 years without ever having enrolled in school,” said Paul Vallas, chief executive officer of the Chicago public schools. “But we’ve had a lot of unusual cases.”

The special truancy line, set up a year ago, has helped bring more than 2,000 students back into the Chicago public school system, which has 425,000 students. Truancy rates have declined 18 percent among boys and 9 percent among girls, officials said. Most of the truants had been out only a few days, but officials have found entire families of children who are not in school and are not receiving home instruction.

“There are a lot of forgotten children out there,” Vander Weele said.