Playing hooky earns truants day of roadside trash pickup

The truancy officer is trying to teach children a hard-earned lesson.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
WARREN -- It was not quite a chain gang: The handful of middle and high school girls were not felons.
But for four hours Saturday, they walked along Union Road in reflective vests and work gloves, picking up roadside trash.
A sheriff's department car, lights flashing, trailed slowly behind.
"It's muddy, it's hot outside, these vests are gay," said Amber Merritt, a ninth-grade student at Warren G. Harding High School. "It sucks."
Merritt, like the other six girls toiling in the afternoon sun, had skipped some school.
The trash pickup was a court-mandated community service project for children convicted of chronic truancy -- more than 15 absences without an excuse.
Who's in charge: "Yeah, there is a little grousing, which is good," said Nick Bellas, the school truancy officer and sheriff's deputy who organized the excursion. "It means they are getting a little miserable."
This is the third lesson of its type Bellas has organized this year. The first time, the children shoveled snow. The second time, they washed police cars, he said.
"We hope to enlighten them that: Without an education, this is the type of work I might get as an adult," he said.
Two hours into their task, the teens slowly combed through the rough grass across from Western Reserve Middle School. They asked about breaks to drink water and use the bathroom.
Another view: Jaimee Klingensmith, one of the more enthusiastic workers, was about halfway through filling her second trash bag with pop bottles, broken glass and bits of wood.
"It is not as bad as I thought it was going to be," said Jaimee, who was quick to point out that she is making A's and has missed only two days of school in the past five weeks. "I'm just glad we are doing stuff for the community."
Not all the truants scheduled arrived for the afternoon session. Three played hooky.