Juvenile Justice System and Risk Factor Data - Illinois Criminal ...

Chronic truants are students who habitually violate compulsory school attendance law by being
absent from school without valid cause for 18 or more school days. Chronic truant programs
are often made available to these students, which may include mentoring, crisis intervention,
family counseling, and academic counseling. Of those truant during AY07, 51,941, or 13
percent, were chronically truant. There was a 29 percent increase in the number of chronic
truants from AY97 to AY07 (Figure 10).
35%
Figure 10
Percent of K-12 truant students chronically truant by region,
AY97 to AY07
nt
ronically trua
Percent ch
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
96-97 97-98 98-99 99-00 00-01 01-02 02-03 03-04 04-05 05-06 06-07
Academic year
Cook Northern Central Southern Illinois
Source: Illinois State Board of Education
The statewide percentage of chronic truants declined steadily from AY97 through AY04. In
2005, the proportion of chronic truants increased to 16 percent from 13 percent the previous
year, before decreasing to 13 percent in AY07.
Truant minors in need of supervision
Truant minors in need of supervision are students ages seven to 17 attending grades K-12 who
are reported by a regional superintendent of schools, or by the Office of Chronic Truant
Adjudication in cities of more than 500,000 inhabitants, as chronic truants (705 ILCS 405/3-33).
In Illinois, there were 24,615 truant minors in need of supervision in AY07—a 63 percent
increase from 15,116 in AY02 and a 29 percent increase from 19,190 recorded in AY97.
The statewide rate of truant minors in need of supervision during the 2006-07 academic year was
1,205 per 100,000 enrolled students, a 60 percent increase from AY02.
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