1225 11th Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20001

(202) 842-3900 PHONE •  (202) 289-6170 FAX

Connect with us:

• Top “40 Lawyers Under 40” Announced
• NBI Golf Tourney. Naming Ceremony
• African Americans & Education
• NBA Hall of Fame Nominations 2010
• Census 2010 Challenge

Search our Site

NBA News Brief

National Bar Association, 1225 11th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001

First Lady Laura Bush Acknowledges Lorenzo Trujillo For Truancy Work

School absences a serious and growing problem; Truancy reaching thirty percent each day in some communities and 70,000 each day in Colorado

Boulder, CO --- Truancy is a serious issue of major concern throughout the United States and one program in Colorado has gained national attention and recognition by First Lady Laura Bush.

"We have a serious and growing problem in the United States with our children not attending school," said Lorenzo Trujillo, Assistant Dean of the University of Colorado Law School and author of a recent study on truancy. "70,000 students were out of school every day in Colorado alone in 2002 and more than two-thirds of all school absences nationwide were non-illness-related with absence rates reaching 30 percent each day in some communities. Truancy has monumental social ramifications and is one of the first and best indicators of academic failure, suspension, expulsion, delinquency and later adult crime."

The study was acknowledged by First Lady Laura Bush in a letter to Dean Trujillo, stating: "President Bush and I are grateful to educators and leaders like you who are taking positive steps to intervene before young people have strayed too far form their connections to school and community. Over and over, the difference in the lives of our youth is made by the personal intervention of someone who shows them-not tells them, shows them- that they matter and that they have what it takes to succeed. The President and I admire you for your good work." First Lady Laura Bush has devoted substantial efforts to improving the potential future of at-risk youths has directed national attention to truancy in the schools as one factor of at-risk youth.

Dean Trujillo spent five years implementing a truancy reduction project in Adams County Public Schools that provided tremendous quantifiable results to help keep kids in school. Project staff worked with Adams County courts and numerous intervention agencies, such as social services, mental health agencies, in-school counselors, day treatment programs, individual tutoring, Saturday classes, parenting classes, and drug and alcohol treatment programs to keep kids in school.

A comprehensive research study about the project was published in the University of California Journal of Juvenile Law and Policy this year: School Truancy: A Case Study of a Successful Truancy Reduction Model in the Public Schools, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 69-95. The study presents details about the model, economic impact, and success results. This past year, the University of Colorado Law School implemented a new Juvenile Law Clinic that works with schools and the courts in matters of dependency and neglect and truancy. As the CU Law School dedicates its new building on September 8th, 2006, the new Clinic, in collaboration with the Juvenile and Family Law Program, will have a new center of operations from where to provide these essential services to keep kids in school.