Parents targeted to take brunt of truants; when students don't show up to school, the district loses funding. So far the San Francisco Unified School District has invested about $500,000 to the Stay in School Coalition with another $400,000 coming.

San Francisco Unified School District's Stay in School Coalition will kick it up a notch this year to reduce the number of unexcused absences. Parents may face rather harsh penalties if their child is a repeat ditcher including a $100 fine and a reduction in welfare. These penalties are used as a last resort, says Keith Choy, the Stay In School Coalition coordinator, who hopes to reduce the number of unexcused absences by 25 percent.

Last year, about 3,500 students had three or more unexcused absences, or didn't have a doctor's note or a note from a parent explaining the absence.

District officials are trying to get parents into schools for mediation first. A penalty is not given out based on the number of times a child is absent. Rather, it's used when all legal processes have been exhausted. Similarly in Philadelphia, the head judge of Family Court had vowed last fall to imprison parents to ensure students go to class.

Choy says they are hoping the effort will pay for itself.

While the coalition is a year-and-a-half old, this is the first school year that community and non-profit organizations are getting involved to make the public more aware. The mayor's office is working with the coalition to inform the community that truancy is everyone's issue, says Cedric Yap, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's education advisor. It will help link families to services that can help get kids to school, such as child care and substance abuse services. The housing authority has been helping the effort by providing computer rooms in public housing developments for homework and intervention specialists for families with social service needs.

Students ditch school for various reasons including caring for younger siblings or working to make money for the family. Other students come from families with a history of crime, drugs or mental health problems or they worry about community violence on the way to or from school, such as from gangs.