— Students are considered truant after three days of unexcused absences. A habitual truant is a student with unexcused absences totaling 10 or more days of school. A chronic truant is a student with unexcused absences totaling 20 or more days.
— In 2009, San Francisco Unified School District had 56,000 students. Approximately 16 percent were either habitual (3,000) or chronic (6,000) truant students
— In 2006, San Francisco’s truancy was worse than the statewide average and higher than Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles and San Diego counties.
— In 2006, there were 5,500 habitual or chronic truants in San Francisco schools, 10 percent of the total student body. Of those, nearly 2,500 (44%) were elementary school students. Two-thirds of habitually and chronically truant students in San Francisco are African American or Latino.
— It is estimated that high school dropouts cost Californians over $46 billion over the lifetimes of the 120,000 students who fail to graduate each year, including nearly $10 billion from increased crime alone.
— Researchers estimate that an increase of 10 percentage points in graduation rates would cut murders and assaults by 20 percent.
— On average 75 percent of truants will drop out of high school. 75 percent of our nation’s incarcerated criminals are habitual truants.
— Over the last four years, 94 percent of San Francisco’s homicide victims under the age of 25 were high school dropouts.
—Office of the District Attorney