ROOKE: Half Of DC High Schoolers, Third Of Middle Schoolers Were Truant Last Year

Our nation’s capital should be the beacon of what American life has to offer, especially for our children. However, its public school system is failing to keep students in desks, and for some, that’s a matter of life and death.

The Washington Post actually did some reporting for a change that could help explain the lawlessness that’s going on in D.C. There were approximately “16,000 D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) students — one-third of its K-12 enrollment — who were truant that school year, meaning they missed at least two weeks of classes without an excuse,” according to the Post.

During the outlets’ investigation, it was uncovered that D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Council allowed over 18,000 truancy violations to go uninvestigated in the last three years. DCPS saw a 110 percent increase in kids skipping class during the 2023-2024 school year.

My latest: D.C. teens wearing GPS ankle monitors have repeatedly let the batteries of their devices go dead. Judges and probation officers have scrambled to find these youth — some who are accused of violent crimes & others who are as young as 12. https://t.co/tbw71v8Wks

— Amy Brittain (@AmyJBrittain) June 10, 2025

“We’re just basically reporting into a vacuum,” Cory Chapman, a math and special education teacher at MacFarland Middle School, told the Post. “We saw something, we said something.” (Sign up for Mary Rooke’s weekly newsletter here!)

The investigation found that the highest number of truant students came from the middle school classrooms. From Chapman’s school alone, 40 percent of the approximate 570 students were truant last school year. The report stated that the rise in school skipping correlated with D.C.’s “spike in carjacking and other serious crimes in 2023,” and detailed several deaths that occurred from these teens committing crimes.

A Brookland resident said he saw Karon Blake, 13, and his friends breaking into cars when a man fatally shot him. Avion Evans, 14, was shot and killed during a fight at the Brookland-CUA Metro station. In 2014, Relisha Rudd, 8, went missing from a homeless shelter and was never found. The Child Welfare Agency took 6 days to investigate the truancy case filed by her school. Irving LaBoard, 14, had missed half the school year. He was shot and killed in Fort Dupont Park.

D.C. youth, 16, ordered confined until age 21 in killing of disc jockey. The teen had 5 other assault, robbery cases as well. Such a heart-wrenching case. #dcyouth https://t.co/mL47lsIjRE

— Keith L. Alexander (@keithlalexander) June 9, 2025

These cases are a tragic reminder of what happens when Democrats have unlimited control. They control the city council, the school boards, the child welfare agencies, the police departments, the justice system, and so on, and yet we are supposed to believe that this is just a cost of living in a big city. (ROOKE: Trump Could Suffocate These Riots By Ending Massive Incentive Program For Illegal Immigrants)

We don’t have to live like this. Our children deserve better than this. The Washington Post analyzed the drop in after-school programs that correlated to the rise in truancy percentages, then detailed the number of programs that were cut in those same years. If adding after-school programs is all it took to keep kids in school, then why is the city council cutting their budgets? Probably to make room for their bloated administrative costs and far-left ideological programs.

After yet another “teen takeover,” DC leaders, business owners seek solutions

Two teens were arrested for carrying a pistol. @WUSA9 https://t.co/09KUKuPhRU pic.twitter.com/ozIfbumHB2

— Lorenzo Hall (@LorenzoHall) May 25, 2025

While after-school programs are effective in keeping kids out of crime, another obvious deterrent would be to make the communities in which these children live safer. But that would go against left-wing thought on policing and criminal justice. God forbid we arrest people committing crimes.

Bowser and the rest of the Democrats in control in D.C. have failed these children.

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