Reporter's notebook - June 3

A carrot and stick approach to truancy

They say 90 percent of success is simply, ‘showing up.’ For a Clovis High School junior, the remaining 10 percent is the luck of the draw.

District Attorney Andrea Reeb announced this week that Cole Carlton was the winner in a radio drawing from over 350 students with perfect attendance in the past school year. The grand prize is an all-expense paid trip to Dallas for him and his family, according to a press release.

The award is part of the Abolish Chronic Truancy program from Reeb’s office, intended “to combat student dropout rates and increase school attendance,” said the release.

The proactive program also consisted of end-of-year school assemblies in Curry and Roosevelt counties, with DA office members speaking to “the correlation between life in the criminal justice system and those that elect to drop out of school,” as well as “the hefty advantages in life of those that obtain an education and finish school.”

Carlton’s prize is one of many incentive giveaways supported by local businesses, including dozens of bikes and electronics.

The ACT program utilizes a mascot, “Squatch,” which might be some wordplay on squashing truancy or a reminder of the monstrous consequences of a life of social and professional isolation. In any case, Squatch seems to be a crowd pleaser.

But it’s not only children who have to reckon with Reeb’s initiative: she said Thursday that two Clovis mothers charged in December with petty misdemeanor crimes for truancy violations are still pending adjudication, with some similar cases likely still to come.

Each of the two women charged last year had children with 15 or more unexcused absences in the semester, and neither had responded to outreach attempts from officials. So parents, if your child missed a day of class you won’t go to jail, but you and your young one might not get free tickets to Six Flags, either.

—Compiled by Staff Writer David Grieder