Prince George’s County work group weighs attendance monitoring, family supports and school-based mental health to curb truancy

Councilwoman Crystal Bridal, co-chair of the Prince George’s County Council’s Truancy Study Work Group, convened the group’s meeting to review recommendations aimed at reducing chronic absenteeism across county public schools. The group discussed strengthening attendance-monitoring systems, expanding parental engagement workshops, standardizing school attendance teams, increasing home visits, building community partnerships for transportation and food security, expanding tutoring and mentoring programs, and improving school-based mental health supports.

The work group is considering recommendations that range from short-term, low-cost steps — such as parental engagement workshops and small incentive programs for improved attendance — to larger staffing and programmatic changes, including adding school social workers and clarifying the scope of home visits. "We are really looking forward to coming up with solutions, not just for the school system that could impact policies and procedures, but more importantly, also how we can look at investing resources, to tackle the issue of truancy," Councilwoman Crystal Bridal said at the start of the meeting.

Why this matters: County officials and school staff said chronic absenteeism is driven by multiple barriers outside the classroom — transportation gaps, food insecurity, inconsistent contact information for families and unmet mental-health needs — and that responses must combine administrative changes with community supports. The work group intends to produce recommendations the council can consider and share data and reports from the school system before its next meeting.

Attendance monitoring and escalation: Members discussed creating a more standardized, countywide attendance-monitoring system that would trigger interventions automatically and reliably. Dr. Christie, co-chair, and other participants said current practices vary by school: some schools have dedicated attendance teams chaired by an administrator, while others rely on ad hoc processes. A school-support staff member explained that attendance teams sometimes work with Prince George’s County Department of Social Services’ school-based advocates (PPWs) to follow up on students who are behind in attendance.

Parental engagement and incentives: Work-group members described parental workshops modeled on an existing partnership between the state’s attorney’s office and the school system that emphasizes the legal consequences of truancy. Several participants suggested supplementing that approach with workshops focused on practical strategies and resources, translated materials, hybrid meeting times, child care and modest incentives to boost attendance at sessions. A school social worker who identified herself as Lindsay said transportation is a persistent barrier and recommended offering meetings at multiple times, providing translators and offering incentives so parents will attend in person when possible.

Home visits and staffing limits: The group discussed home visits as an escalation for chronic absenteeism. County staff described triggers such as nonresponsive families after letters and calls and said home visits are conducted by PPWs and should involve at least two people for safety. Meeting participants noted that staffing for PPWs was cut after the 2008 recession and has not been fully restored; one staff member said the office currently places advocates in 25 middle schools to perform case management and outreach.

Tutoring, mentoring and community partnerships: Members suggested expanding volunteer and paid tutoring, including partnerships with Bowie State University, the University of Maryland and local colleges, and using service-hour incentives for older students who tutor younger peers. Participants proposed piloting improved community-school coordination in schools that return robust needs-assessment data; a former community-school coordinator described using needs assessments to set top-three goals (for example, food insecurity or access to mental-health care) and then tying budgeted resources to those goals.

School-based mental health and Hazel Health: Participants discussed school-based mental-health services and the contracted telehealth service Hazel Health. A school social worker said Hazel Health offers six free virtual sessions by contract and that the county’s current policy requires parental consent for students of any age to use the service, even though participants noted state law allows some minors to consent to mental-health treatment at younger ages. The group raised two consistent problems: (1) many schools lack enough in-house social workers and therapists to provide sustained care, and (2) contracted clinicians’ caseload caps and turnover limit continuity of services.

Staffing and budget figures discussed: Aaron, a committee staff member, cited the superintendent’s proposed fiscal 2026 budget figures the group should review: 76 personnel-worker/school-social-worker positions (proposed, same as 2025 estimate), 99 psychologists (proposed, same as 2025 estimate) and about 173.51 FTE listed for contracted therapists. A school social worker said her school’s ratio currently is about one social worker to 2,800 students, underscoring participants’ view that county staffing levels are inadequate to meet demand.

Formal action taken: The group approved the minutes from the prior meeting by voice, with Chief Collington moving to approve and a second by Brandon; the transcript records no roll-call tally.

Next steps and follow-up: The work group asked staff to collect and circulate additional data before the next meeting on March 19 — including details about the attendance-monitoring system, home-visit triggers and counts, community-school needs-assessment responses, the cap and caseloads for contracted therapists, and examples of expanded online/evening learning models in other districts. Councilwoman Bridal said members should add recommendations to the shared document and that staff will circulate which topic area the next meeting will focus on.

The meeting closed with co-chairs thanking participants and scheduling the next session for March 19 at 3 p.m.