Commissioners approve in-house truancy program for K-8 students
A 3-2 vote put Douglas County’s new in-house truancy team over K-8 families, replacing a $150,000 nonprofit partnership that some leaders called a step backward.
Douglas County commissioners approved a new in-house truancy program for elementary and middle school students by a 3-2 vote Wednesday, putting the county’s Youth Services division in charge of a system that will now handle K-8 attendance cases inside Douglas County Criminal Justice Services.
The county will move away from its long-running arrangement with the Center for Supportive Communities, which had received $150,000 a year since 2023 to run SupportEd truancy work. Commissioner Shannon Reid, Patrick Kelly and Karen Willey voted yes, while Erica Anderson and Gene Dorsey voted no. The same proposal had deadlocked 2-2 on May 27, when Willey was absent, leaving commissioners to defer the issue until she could return.
EveryDay Counts will keep some pieces of the current model, including attendance incentives and an 8-week graduation criterion, but will center case management and family-school coordination rather than the mentoring model used by SupportEd. The 2027 budget estimate for the county program is $113,467, and the plan adds an extra truancy coordinator.
The vote drew sharp criticism from supporters of the nonprofit model. Lawrence school board member Bob Byers said the county’s approach was going backwards, and Kelsey Dachman, the executive director and co-founder of the Center for Supportive Communities, said SupportEd works with more than 30 trained community members and provides direct mental-health interventions to families. The earlier decision to withhold CSC funding came amid concern the group might lose AmeriCorps money, though the nonprofit later said it would receive that funding after budget talks had already taken place.
Douglas County’s truancy system has been coordinated by Juvenile Services since fall 2011, and the current framework pairs SupportEd with kindergarten through eighth grade students and O’Connell Children’s Shelter with grades 9 through 12. Kansas compulsory attendance law covers children ages 7 through 17, and schools must report certain patterns of unexcused absences to state or county authorities.
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