Hot on kids’ tracks

By Emily Richmond

Sunday, April 8, 2007 | 7:26 a.m.

He's barely inside McDonald's when an elderly woman looks up from her Egg McMuffin and tells him, "They ran out the door. They saw you coming."

Three boys, probably 14 or 15 years old, the woman says.

He turns and sprints for the exit.

It's 14 minutes into Tom Misday's shift as a truant officer, and the chase is on.

As Misday scans the street, the McDonald's manager pokes her head out and calls to him: "Thank you for coming!"

He waves, hops back in his white Chevy Blazer and makes a sharp turn into the parking lot of an adjacent strip mall.

He spots the three teenagers, clad in a mix of red shirts, long denim shorts and dark pants.

And the boys see him.

They dart between an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet and a hair salon, hurriedly scaling a chain-link fence.

Misday, 61, is in great shape for any age . But climb a 5-foot fence?

Nothing in his former life as a private pilot flying business people across the country prepared him for that, or for any of the cat-and-mouse games of rounding up Clark County's most rebellious kids.

He's given up the Learjet for the Chevy, traded his pressed white shirts for polo casual and let the buzz cut grow out an inch, maybe two.

His wife, a longtime principal in Clark County, suggested he work for the School District. After driving a school bus for a while, he sought out his job as attendance officer. It means ferrying sick kids home and transporting student records. But catching truants is the central task.

A chain-link fence?

Misday pulls up short, watching as the boys disappear into a cluster of hedges.

Besides, what is he to do? He can't tackle them. Unlike campus security, attendance officers are not allowed to make physical contact with a student. They are armed only with a clipboard and a two-way radio.

Misday guesses the boys are running through a nearby apartment complex, so he drives around to head them off. Suddenly, Misday glimpses a girl, maybe 11 or 12, on a patch of lawn. And she spots trouble dressed in neatly pressed trousers and a white polo shirt with a School District logo. She turns and runs.

Misday is amused. He walks around a corner and finds the girl and a friend sitting at a picnic table.

Why aren't you in school?

We overslept.

We'll walk to school later.

Uh uh. You're going right now.

He walks them to the car. "Buckle up."

Overslept? That's common, along with: My dad said I could cut school. My aunt is visiting. We're moving next week, so what's the point?

Do you cut school a lot , Misday asks the girls. "That's actually going to determine what happens to you," he tells them in a confidential tone. "If you have bad attendance, the consequences will be more severe."

At Roy Martin Middle School, the girls walk silently, arms crossed over chests, to the dean's office. Dean of Students Lisa Lamb is waiting, looking stern.

She snaps at the girls to sit down and wait. A boy slouches in a chair, fingers plucking an invisible guitar. He glances up, says nothing. One girl puts her head down on a desk and closes her eyes.

Misday reports that the girls were polite and cooperative.

Last academic year, 1,273 Clark County students were cited for truancy, meaning they had at least three unexcused absences. But many more kids than that ditch.

The School District has tried many approaches. It stepped up neighborhood patrols and rewarded kids for stellar attendance. But results are measured by changes of only a percentage point or two. There's been no dramatic improvement.

More attendance officers might help. The Las Vegas Valley has 19. Schools Superintendent Walt Rulffes wants three more.

Lately the district has mounted sweeps into neighborhoods reportedly home to daytime parties. Those sweeps have netted more than 400 students, including one who thought he could dodge the dragnet by pulling a thick roll of bills from his low-slung, oversized jeans.

"You don't have to put my name on that list," he told the truant officer, peeling off a hundred-dollar bill.

Put the money away, the officer said. The boy's name went on the list.

On a typical day, 50 kids are snatched from streets, food courts, parks and convenience stores and returned to schools. The district wants them in classrooms for their safety, and because it's the law.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, more staff and an electronic system for reporting attendance are keeping better track of students. In Oklahoma, parents face jail time if their children skip. And a new Maryland law prohibits habitual truants from receiving a learner's permit.

The Nevada Legislature is considering several truancy bills, including measures to fund a diversion court for habitual offenders and lower the number of absences a student could have and still earn academic credit.

Some schools are addressing the problem on their own.

Desert Pines High School has declared war on truancy, citing nearly 400 students as habitual offenders this year. That's compared with two citations for all of last school year. The school also has mailed more than 1,800 letters alerting parents each time their child is truant.

One of Misday's favorite truant stories is about a girl who left campus for lunch one day last year - and was quickly spotted by teachers because she was wearing her cheerleading uniform.

It was his daughter.

She hasn't done it since.

Misday's usual beat is Silverado Ranch. But this day he patrols one of the truancy hot spots, a pocket of strip malls, residential neighborhoods and fast-food restaurants stretching from Desert Pines High School in the east to Rancho High School in North Las Vegas. The area includes two middle schools and a half-dozen elementary schools.

After leaving the two girls at their school, Misday cruises past a used-car lot on Eastern Avenue. He spies the three McDonald's boys lolling against a blue convertible.

Misday pulls the Blazer hard into the lot. The boys run. As Misday steps out of the vehicle, the boys scramble toward a tire pile on the back of the lot and vanish.

Misday sighs, shaking his head.

"Their parents probably go to work and lock them out of the house so they can't get back in and cause trouble," Misday says. "They'll spend the whole day running away."

The next stop is a crowded Taco Bell. A quick glance inside yields only young mothers with toddlers, and a few men with dusty faces and heavy work boots. Cashiers recognize Misday's attire and wave, and he tips an imaginary hat in reply.

A narrow, unpaved alley separates the Taco Bell from a bank of modest apartments. Vagrants pick over trash bins and sort through their overburdened shopping carts. A woman trying to clear plastic bags and bottles from her yard sees the School District logo on the side of the Blazer and hurries over.

High school kids are hanging out on the street at all hours, she says. Can you do something?

Misday takes notes. It depresses him, thinking about this decent lady trying to keep her yard clean. What right do those kids have to make her uncomfortable?

It's 10:40 a.m. Three girls walk past Misday's car in a shopping center near Desert Pines. He pulls over and asks the obvious.

One says she's 18 and doesn't have to be in school. The second girl explains she was kicked out of high school and is supposed to start an alternative evening program the next week. Misday confirms both stories with the attendance office dispatcher. They're free to go. The third girl says she goes to Desert Pines but her mother knows she's not in school today.

That's not an excuse, Misday tells her.

"Take me to my mom's house. She's knows I'm not in school!" the girl protests.

No way, Misday says.

The girl's bravado turns to belligerence.

She and her friends unleash a torrent of vulgarities at Misday. He doesn't flinch. The Desert Pines girl calls her mother, offering a disjointed explanation.

The phone is passed to Misday. The mother explains that the girl was up late last night, visiting with her boyfriend.

"You can pick your daughter up at Desert Pines," Misday tells her politely.

The phone is handed back to the girl. Just cooperate, the mother says. I'll handle this when I get to the school.

At Desert Pines, the office reports that the girl he brought in has hardly been to school all year.

"That's not true," she shouts. "I was here two days last week."

A dean tells the girl to climb on a golf cart for a ride to the office.

"I'm not moving till my mom gets here," the girl snarls.

"You're mom's gonna meet you where we put you," the dean retorts.

Misday gets word that as many as 50 Desert Pines students are at McDonald's a couple of blocks away. As he drives over, Misday passes the girl's two friends. In unison, they flash middle fingers.

Misday shrugs.

At McDonald's, reactions to Misday vary. Some students scatter like startled birds. Others stroll out the door with feigned nonchalance.

He approaches a quartet of students finishing cheeseburgers. "This isn't ditching," a boy explains. "This is lunch."

Four girls are paying for meals. Misday asks them to wait, but they hurry outside toward a CAT bus stop.

Misday calls for backup. By now, he has eight students huddled around three tables, too many to fit in the Blazer. The restaurant manager says that more students have left , and that this occurs daily. She always tells them to order their food quickly and hurry back to school, but they never listen.

Misday gives her the dispatcher's phone number. Call if you need us, he says. Better yet, don't serve them.

The eight kids are new faces. He doesn't expect to see them again, not as he does the students in Silverado Ranch. His roster of regulars there includes a Silverado High School student Misday picked up for the first time nearly two years ago.

Recently he realized that he hadn't seen her in a while, so he went to Silverado to find out what happened.

She's in class, he was told.

So he waited for her. Then Misday shook her hand. I'm proud of you, he told her.

Misday leaves the McDonald's and drives toward Rancho. On this day, he will not catch those three boys. But he spies other teenagers emerging from residential streets, vacant lots and fast-food joints, heading back to campus like Holsteins trudging home at dusk.

The truants want to catch the school bus home.