According to Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, truancy, or unexcused absence from school, has been linked to serious delinquent activity in youth and to significant negative behavior and characteristics in adults. Their recent bulletin On Truancy Reduction: Keeping Students in School, supports and reenforces CMS’s initiative to establish a Truancy Mediation Project. According to the bulletin ” the juvenile justice system is increasingly serving as the final stop for truants and as a mechanism for intervening with chronic truants. Recent statistics available on the extent of truancy cases in juvenile court clearly demonstrate how important it is for schools and communities to confront this issue”. CMS has received funding from East Tennessee Foundation to work with our stakeholders to determine how mediation might help with this growing problem. We welcome input from all our stakeholders and the community as well. You may contact us at info@cms-tn.org