A program designed to help students with attendance problems stay in school is coming to School District of Lancaster.

SDL is partnering with Lancaster County Children & Youth Services to implement the Truancy Prevention Program at district middle schools beginning in January.

The county commissioners this week approved $100,000 for the first year of the two-year program, which will provide adult mentors for pupils and their families to help students complete their school work and increase attendance.

SDL likely will contribute at least $60,000 this year to the effort, said Pam Smith, the district's coordinator of safe schools/healthy students. The commitment may be greater, she said, depending on how much funding is available from existing grants.

Smith said the program likely will begin in mid-January for students in grades seven and eight at Wheatland, Reynolds, Hand and Lincoln middle schools.

Pupils with chronic attendance problems will be referred by teachers, counselors and community members, as well as the county's Children & Youth and Juvenile Probation departments.

The mentors will meet at least weekly with each student and visit their families to keep tabs on attendance, academic performance and behavior.

Mentors also will work with family members to implement successful homework routines and study skills. They also will call students' homes, if necessary, in the morning to make sure they're getting ready for school and later in the day if they didn't show up.

The district is hoping to have at least two full-time and one part-time mentor serving students at its four middle schools, which have attendance rates averaging about 94 percent.

While the vast majority of students show up each morning, Smith said, each school has a small number of chronically truant pupils. If their attendance habits don't improve, those students are more likely than their peers to drop out of high school.

The mentors will perform many of the duties previously performed by SDL school outreach workers. The district cut those positions from this year's budget to help bridge a multimillion-dollar funding gap.

Smith said mentors will work out of offices in each school so they become "embedded in the fabric of the school building."

The mentors will continue to work with the same students next year, which Smith said will help eighth graders make the crucial transition to high school.

The mentors will be provided by Pennsylvania Counseling Services, which runs a similar program called Check & Connect in York County.

Begun last school year in the York City, South Western and Northeastern school districts, the program has reduced absences, on average, by more than half, according to the York County Truancy Prevention Initiative.

Eighty-two percent of students enrolled in the program had fewer unexcused absences in 2011-12 than in the previous year, the group reported on its website.

bwallace@lnpnews.com