Prince George’s County truancy work group approves package of interventions, family-engagement recommendations

The Prince George’s County Truancy Study Work Group voted to approve a package of recommendations aimed at reducing chronic absenteeism and strengthening family engagement.

The work group, which met for its final session, approved a slate of proposals that include expanding diversion courts and court-based case management, piloting attendance-success coaches, creating attendance-recovery options (including after-school, weekend and online make-up sessions), transportation assistance for students, and bolstering family-engagement measures such as parent liaisons, multilingual outreach and school-based family resource hubs.

Why it matters: members said the package is intended to create earlier, school-based interventions and clearer community supports so fewer cases need legal escalation. The group’s recommendations will be compiled into a final report to be submitted to the county executive, the County Council and the Prince George’s County school board, and the work group plans to ask the Education Workforce and Development Committee to schedule a hearing on the report.

At the meeting chair Erin, work group chair, described the group’s intent as a long-term effort to “evaluate the things that we’re currently doing, things that we could try to do in the future, looking at resources, policy changes, and not just a quick fix, but a long fix.” Dr. Donna Christie, president of the Prince George’s County Educators Association, told the group she represents “our 10,000 professional educators in the county who work directly with our students every day,” and emphasized truancy’s long-running effects on classroom learning.

Discussion highlights

- Diversion courts and case management: Members discussed increasing resources for the existing truancy diversion programs that involve judges, social workers and educators so chronically absent students can receive tailored attendance plans without formal criminal charges. Participants noted the court-run program has previously identified a need for more case managers.

- Attendance-success coaches: The group debated a pilot to hire specialized staff to work one-on-one with students and families to identify barriers, set improvement goals and coordinate academic recovery. The recommended pilot timeframe was discussed as roughly six months to a year; members stressed evaluating caseload expectations and whether the role should focus on front-end prevention, back-end academic recovery, or both.

- Attendance recovery and flexible options: The recommendations include after-school or weekend make-up sessions, and explicitly call for online options, to give students more ways to recover missed instructional time. Members noted cost would vary depending on scale and frequency.

- Transportation assistance: The group recommended transportation support (for example, transit fare cards or gas stipends) for older students facing access barriers. Members cited a case in which a student who previously received door-to-door bus service no longer received pickup, creating a practical barrier to attendance.

- Community-based navigators and family engagement: The work group proposed partnering with local nonprofits to provide neighborhood navigators who can connect families to services, and recommended parent attendance liaisons, monthly family engagement nights, expanded home-visit capacity, text-message attendance alerts, multilingual parent engagement teams and school-based family resource hubs.

- Reporting, translation and outreach: Participants asked staff to add a recommendation to evaluate the process by which community members report suspected truancy and to strengthen translation services and public-facing resource hubs so families can more easily find supports.

Vote and next steps

The body approved a motion to adopt all recommendations reviewed at the meeting, with an understanding that staff would consolidate duplicative items before finalizing the report. The vote was taken by voice; the chair recorded the motion as approved and directed staff to draft the report for member review. The work group requested the draft be circulated to members for a short review period, then submitted to the county executive, the County Council and the school board; the chair said the report deadline is expected to be 30 days but staff would confirm the exact requirement.

Staff directions recorded at the meeting include consolidating overlapping recommendations, adding a public-facing resource hub recommendation, and preparing the draft report and distribution list. The group also identified the Education Workforce and Development Committee as the likely forum for a subsequent public hearing on the recommendations.

Members said they see the effort as the start of a longer process. “Ultimately, our goal as a county is to improve access, efficiency and effectiveness,” Dr. Donna Christie said, adding that success would be judged by whether families access services more easily and whether programs are implemented with fidelity.

A final draft will be circulated to work group members for review before formal submission to county and school officials.