LEWISTON – Some were too tired for school. Some were too stressed. Others just didn’t want to go.

In the past two years, Lewiston’s number of truant students has more than doubled. Most habitual truants missed between 10 and 30 days. One student was absent for 100.

“I can’t tell you what’s happening other than there are an awful lot of kids falling through the cracks,” said the truant officer, Wallace “Butch” Pratt.

As the new year begins, Pratt is on a mission: Get those students back in school and keep them there.

“It’s something we don’t want to ignore,” he said.

Hard-core truants

In the 1990s, about 1,000 Maine students between 7 and 17 years old missed at least seven days in a row or at least 10 days out of the school year. Since 2000, that number has doubled.

Until last year, truancy wasn’t such a big issue for Lewiston. Since 2000, the number of habitually absent kids has stayed between 40 and 69.

But last year, Lewiston truancies took a sudden and surprising leap. Although exact figures won’t be available until later this fall, Pratt estimated that 150 kids missed whole chunks of the school year.

He hasn’t been able to figure out why.

About 20 percent of the students were legitimately absent, Pratt believed. They would have been excused if their parents had called the school.

“I found a couple of people who didn’t realize truancy even existed,” said Pratt.

But most of the missing students were ducking school, often too tired, stressed or unhappy to go.

“These are hard-core truants,” Pratt said.

This year, he’s hoping to change all that.

When absences start this year, Pratt and other school officials will make a greater effort to contact parents early on. Home visits will be more frequent.

He also plans to meet with parents of elementary schoolchildren who were often absent last year.

“We’re really going to try to get that personal contact, not just say, Your child wasn’t here.’ But give them the message: Truancy starts now,'” Pratt said.

New law

Pratt will deliver a letter written in both English and Somali, warning families that they must get their children to school or face Maine’s new truancy law.

That law makes it easier for school systems to take parents to court when their children miss school. The law gives judges new power to fine parents and to force the family to comply with a plan to get the student back in school. The judge can also require that parents take parenting classes, attend school with their child, or seek counseling.

Although he has a better legal option now, Pratt hopes to avoid it in most cases. He wants to get families help rather than a date in court.

Working with other school officials and a new domestic violence intervention officer at the Lewiston Police Department, Pratt will help families get counseling and other services.

It’s help that Althea Walker, principal of the 475-student McMahon Elementary School, will appreciate. Thirty of her students, or about 6 percent, were truant last year. Some were absent for 20 to 30 days.

Students who lose so much school often have a difficult time catching up, Walker said.

“There are holes in their basic knowledge,” she said.

Pratt hopes to lower Lewiston’s truancy rate by at least 10 percent this year. He’d like to see it reduced even more.

“But if we help just one child, that’s one that will be on the road to something better,” he said.

BREAKOUT:

Number of truancies in Lewiston

2000-01: 69

2001-02: 40

2002-03: 63

2003-04: 150, estimated