SKIPPING OUT: SCHOOLS SAY FULL-TIME TRUANCY OFFICER NEEDED

"Education is important."

The words are Tommie Moore's, a 19-year-old 11th-grader at the Cape Girardeau Alternative Education Center. Considering he lost two semesters worth of credit because he was a chronic school-skipper, the sentiment could be considered ironic.

But he insists he means it.

"I regret what I did," Moore said sternly. "That's why I'm only in the 11th grade now."

Moore said he skipped school about 50 times while he was in junior high and high school. That's why they sent him to the alternative school.

The alternative school focuses on students who are having trouble in school and administrators at the school say truancy is often the first sign of trouble.

"I'd go to school, skip a couple days, go back, then skip a week," Moore said. "Most of the time, I'd just sit around at home being lazy."

Moore plans to graduate next year.

"I can't talk down to them because I did the same thing," Moore said. "But I'd tell them their best bet is to go to school every day. Don't stop going just because a class seems hard. Ask questions. There's really nothing wrong with asking questions."

Moore's teacher at the alternative school, Andy Reddick, said that Moore is a smart kid. But even a smart kid can't learn if he's skipping all the time, Reddick said.

"Kids who skip class are really missing out," Reddick said. "How can they learn something if they're not there?"

Reddick said that he feels some students become apathetic. Students see educated people who are unemployed or having to work menial jobs, Reddick said.

He said that students see athletes and rock musicians make huge sums of money without having any sort of degrees. All of these things make students indifferent about their own education.

"They just say `What difference does it make if I go to school or not?'" he said.

Many say that hiring a full-time truant officer is the answer. Cape Girardeau had a truant officer until 1992, when city leaders cited budget cuts as a reason to eliminate the position.

Now school administrators are saying that they'd like to see a truant officer hired again. While there have been rumblings about the need for a truant officer, there has been no serious discussion on the matter.

"I wish we had one," said Leland Gattis, assistant principal of Cape Girardeau Central Junior High School. "Checking on these kids day to day is a chore."

Gattis said that the majority of "consistent truancies" are at his school and Louis J. Schultz Middle School. Students older than junior high age are nearly 16 years old and cannot be forced to go to school, even by his or her parents, Gattis said. That's stipulated by Missouri law, he said.

There are 690 students at the junior high school and Gattis said that they average about a 92 percent attendance rate daily. That may sound pretty good, but Gattis focuses on the children who aren't there. These are the children who are missing out, he said.

"I don't want to give up on any kid," Gattis said.

He said he'd like to see around a 95 percent attendance rate and a new district policy is going to help achieve that. Over the next couple of years, the attendance policy is going to become more stringent, he said. Finally, students will only be able to miss five days of school a semester before they lose credit.

"But no matter what happens, you're never going to get rid of truancy," Gattis said.

John Eck, principal of Louis J. Schultz School, said that sometimes, it takes a friend of the student or an older brother to set the student straight.

"I think it's a good idea for students to work," Eck said. "That way they can see what it's like to work for minimum wage. Then they might say, `I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. I'd better stay in school."