- The top leaders of the city of Tallahassee, Leon County, and Leon County Schools met on Wednesday and talked about ongoing issues with K-12 students.
- At the top of LCS Superintendent Rocky Hanna's list was students being absent.
- Above, watch Wednesday's meeting, which had no set agenda. It happens only a few times a year when the city, county, and school have open conversations with the public in the room.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
The top leaders of the city of Tallahassee, Leon County, and Leon County Schools met on Wednesday and talked about ongoing issues with K-12 students.
Your neighborhood reporter Shamarria Morrison sat in to hear about the issues they say need intergovernmental cooperation to improve our neighborhood.
Leon County School leaders led most of the conversation surrounding community issues.
At the top of LCS Superintendent Rocky Hanna's list was students being absent. Data shows in the first nine weeks of school about 27% of students were what's considered chronically absent.
That number is in line with the national average but is up about 4% from the same time last year in the district. Chronically absent means a student missed 10% or more than 18 days of school each year.
Hanna said the city and county can, and have, gotten involved in helping relieve this issue.
"As a school district, how can we partner with them?," Rocky Hanna, LCS Superintendent said. "To show kids there are all these jobs out there? We have the training facility at Lively Technical College, to give them the skills they need to compete for those jobs, to not give up on yourself."
Wednesday's meeting was a meeting with no set agenda. It happens only a few times a year when the city, county, and school have open conversations with the public in the room.
"We work extremely well together," John Dailey, Tallahassee Mayor said. "Okay. We have a city manager, have a county administrator, and a superintendent who run the day-to-day operations of the three governmental entities that are professional friends."
Hanna told the group they had sent 50 truancy petitions to the juvenile courts.
If the court determines that a student is truant, the court can order the student to attend school and the child's parent has to also ensure the student attends school.
Alternative sanctions such as mandatory community service hours, counseling, mental health services, mandatory vocational, job training, or employment services can also be ordered.
