VictoriaSwartz

My name is Victoria Swartz. I am a high school assistant principal for the Louisville School District and am in charge of 11th and 12th grade students; I am also the district attendance officer. (Here is a link to my website: http://www.lepnet.sparcc.org/hck/cgi-bin/homepage.cgi?id=vswartz ).

My dissertation will involve looking at a phenomenon know as parent-condoned truancy, and how the parent/school relationship plays into a student trying to truant from school with his/her parent's permission.

I come by this topic earnestly, as I was a chronic truant myself as a youngster. However my interest in this topic peeked during my first year as the Assistant Principal for the Southeast Local School district. One day during my first year as an administrator, the attendance secretary came to me and said, "Vickie, this student has missed several days of school and has not brought in an excuse. What should we do?" Although at the time the answer seemed easy, "Call her mom and tell her we need an excuse." It wasn't that simple. I had never thought of the impact of parent-condoned truancy, the difficulty in dealing with this issue, or the impact of it on a child's education. That is when I decided to learn more.

Since that time I have presented at local, county, and state conferences, teaching others how to combat this issue. In October I will be presenting at the Internation Association of Truancy and Drop out Prevention ( http://www.iatdp.org/ ) conference, which is a great honor.