Many students who regularly skip school share a common link.

According to retired police detective Richard J. Wistocki of Illinois, these young people are on the run.

Wistocki, who is helping Northeast Oregon school districts deal with truancy issues, knows this firsthand after working extensively with youth during a three-decade law enforcement career.

“Many times students who are chronically absent are running to or away from something. The key is finding out what it is,” Wistocki said during a recent meeting with educators and law enforcement officials in La Grande.

For example, Wistocki said, truant students may be running to a drug dealer or away from a bully at school. The best way to find out what these students are running to or from is to check their cellphones, where one can find who they have interactions with on social media.

“It is all in here. It is all recorded,” said Wistocki, pointing to a smartphone.

Wistocki said everyone should strive to have an open mind and not dismiss students who are chronically absent.

“When a student is truant, it is not enough just to say, ‘That kid is a handful and he or she does not care.’ We must show that child there is a better way. We have to show them the resources that are available to them so they can succeed in school,” he said.

He believes it is critical for students to see they have an opportunity to turn things around and also recognize that dire consequences are on the horizon if they do not.

“Once the child knows there is hope (and realizes) ‘I will end up like that felon or that heroin addict if I don’t stay in school, we are hoping (it) will curtail their truant behavior,’’ Wistocki said.

He emphasized students who have already been deemed, or are a few absences away from, becoming truant can have the course of their lives corrected with the help of diversion programs. A diversion program in the criminal justice system is a form of sentence in which an offender joins a rehabilitation program in lieu of being punished. Someone in a diversion program may be assigned community service work or be required to meet daily with a law enforcement officer serving as a resource officer at their school.

Wistocki said this is beneficial because it gives young offenders a chance to make amends and gives them a second chance.

“Children need guidance,” Wistocki said. “They do not need handcuffs.”

He said the path to his philosphy of restorative justice began when he realized many of the young people he met as a police officer in Naperville, Illinois, weren’t equipped to make good choices.

“They didn’t have guidance and support to understand and identify the risks that certain behavior exposed them to,” Wistocki said.

Diversion plans, which give young people the opportunity to learn from their mistakes, are most effective when they can be developed with the help of parents, Wistocki said. He discovered this when working as a law enforcement officer. He found the more time he spent with parents, the better job he did of connecting with their son or daughter who was in trouble.

Wistocki believes it is important to give parents a say in the development of their child’s diversion program. For the most part, parents are grateful to be involved in the process.

“They were so appreciative their child was not put into the (criminal justice) system,” he said, explaining a diversion program can give parents “the opportunity to stop their child’s pipeline to prison.”

Parents are often eager to help with the development of a diversion program because it “provides them with a sense of empowerment,” Wistocki added.

The former police officer started working with Northeast Oregon school districts earlier in 2019 and will continue to do so at least through June of 2020 as part of a pilot project. His services are available to all school districts in the InterMountain Education Service District, which encompasses most of Union, Umatilla and Morrow counties. His expertise is also available to the Hermiston School District, which is not part of the IMESD, and school districts in Baker and Wallowa counties.

Wistocki provides information on diversion programs via JuvenileJusticeOnline.org, a website he created. He said that law enforcement, probation and school administrators are referred to as diversion agents via this program.

Wistocki was brought to Northeast Oregon as part of an effort to reduce chronic absenteeism rates. The effort is being spurred by the Oregon Department of Education, which began placing greater emphasis on reducing chronic absenteeism rates about two years ago as a way to improve graduation rates. Students who are chronically absent are less likely to earn a high school diploma.

“Our chronic absenteeism rates are below the state average, but we always want to get them lower,” said Landon Braden, the InterMountain ESD’s chronic absenteeism director. “We are truly lucky to have (Wistocki).”

Wistocki has given six presentations in Northeast Oregon and four webinars for people in the region. Over the next year he is set to give at least seven more talks here.

See complete story in Friday’s Observer