• Allocated Funds by NZ Government. 2009 funding round.

$4.5 Million is allocated for 89 DTS's.
6 x  Ministry of Education Staff Special Support
$2.0 Million allocated for high risk

The new Agreement  (2010) gave us a slight funding increase

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• Outcomes of the District Truancy Services Evaluation 2009

I was going to copy this but my printer tells me it’s about 111 pages.
So go to the following link.

Klick to Check out
Evaluation of District Truancy Services (DTS) Report [PDF; 1.01mb]

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• Funding to tackle truancy doubled - 2/03/2010
  

Klick to Check out http://tinyurl.com/yktz988
I thought these comments of great interest in this article. I fully support them.

• The funding would also encourage schools to implement early notification systems, which automatically send text messages to parents when students are absent without explanation.

The TXTing system is used in a few schools in the Taranaki Districts successfully.

• Long-term truants would be targeted in a $1.5 million scheme, which would involve truancy officers visiting homes and searching known hangouts to get students re-enrolled at schools.

Will Government give us more 'power of Authority?

• Funding would also be set aside to help schools prosecute the parents of persistent truants.

North, Central & South Taranaki DTS's use the Rock On approach with Youth Aide Police for this. We could do this yes using the same process.The Police do the job better and are trained to do this. Will we get the training?

• "Work will continue on our long-term approach, aimed at keeping more children engaged at school, rather than having to get truants back into the system once they have become disengaged," Mrs Tolley said.

There are many services in Taranaki who support dropped out students in some form of education.

• "Evidence shows that regular attendance in school is the biggest factor in student achievement.
  
• Chronic truancy can lead to negative outcomes later in life such as violence, substance abuse or unemployment."

If the plan is stuck to by this and other incoming Governments we will cut the crime rate hopefully.
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• Truancy-plan concerns parents

Newstalk ZB March 2, 2010, 4:14 pm
A parent group is concerned by Government plans aiming to deal with persistent truancy in our schools.

• Education Minister Anne Tolley has outlined extra funding for initiatives, that include holding parents accountable.

• Parent.org.nz spokesman Steve Gore says prosecuting parents will not change anything and points to the education system as a major part of the problem.

• "We've got an education system the kids can't see any relevance to and kids are responding to that with their feet."

• Mr Gore says the Government makes parenting all about failure, and they're not interested in successes.

• "All they want to do is punish parents when things go wrong."

• He stresses that we really need to be asking ask why our kids are skipping school.