Coalition takes aim at twin problems of drugs, truancy

Students with 6 or more Unexcused Absences

Lack of funding has been a stumbling block to efforts to combat truancy in Hamilton County, but a new state-funded coalition may help build momentum to change that, local youth advocates say.

“We have the key people on board. Now we’re coming up with ways to address the issues going on,” said Hugh Reece, community outreach consultant for Community Anti-Drug Coalition Across Hamilton County.

The coalition has built a diverse membership since it first obtained grant money in 2006 to begin attacking the roots of the community’s drug problem, which include truancy, explained Project Director Camilla Bibbs-Lee.

“We want to start to connect the community to the school,” Ms. Bibbs-Lee said. “If kids are not in school, what does the community think they are doing? I don’t think many teenagers are sitting around watching ‘Mr. Rogers.’”

The group — which includes members from a number of local organizations, including city police, county sheriff’s deputies, parks and recreation officials and health department staffers — has about $86,000 in state grant money this year, Ms. Bibbs-Lee said.

The coalition also works closely with federally funded Weed and Seed groups in Chattanooga to provide positive, anti-drug programming, she said.

Youth advocates struggle with what has become a complex issue, said Lakweshia Tibbs, district coordinator for family engagement and community partnerships for Hamilton County Schools. While truancy yields drug use and juvenile crime, drug use and crime can yield truancy, she said.

“You have to come back to the chicken and the egg,” she said.

Parent outreach is key in dealing with the interconnected problems, she said. Two years ago she started sponsoring retreats for parents to provide “hard-hitting parent training.” The idea was a success from the start, she said, as 12 of the 40 participants of the original retreat became active in parent-teacher associations.

“It’s getting parents to realize it’s your job to advocate for your child,” she said. “If not you, then who? If not now, then when?”

She is planning a third retreat in June in cooperation with the city-sponsored Stop the Madness organization.

Mr. Reece said the Anti-Drug Coalition supports Ms. Tibbs’ strategy and hopes eventually to find ways to use its grant to support her efforts.

Coalition members are considering using grant money to help pay officers overtime to conduct truancy sweeps here, Ms. Bibbs-Lee said.

The coalition, she said, has also discussed creating a truancy hot line “with a ‘311’-type system that residents can anonymously use to report suspected truancy.”