Another of my faves, the San Francisco Chronicle, recently ran a feature on an intriguing new program there aimed at combatting chronic truancy.

The Center for Academic Re-entry and Empowerment, or CARE, is run from a YMCA in the city's rough and rundown Bayview-Hunters Point district. It's a collaborative effort of the city, the school district there, law enforcement and various community groups.

An excerpt from staffer Jill Tucker's story:

"The center is a throwback to the era of truant officers who rounded up kids off street corners and brought them to a dog-pound detention center until someone picked them up.

The city's new center took that old-school idea and stretched it. Instead of being sent to their most recent school, the teenagers are expected to come back to the center to attend academic and life-skills classes and work with a mentor while they and their families get hooked up with community services they need.

If Jacqueela stays the expected nine weeks, she will earn 15 credits toward her diploma and perhaps get the skills to make it in high school.

For many of the students, the accumulated years of missed school have left them so far behind that building a future on the back of an education had fallen out of their grasp. The YMCA center probably is their last hope.

"Our goal is to get the kids back in school with a map to graduation," said Gina Fromer, executive director of the neighborhood's YMCA."

Read the whole piece then let me know, via shelly.leachman@dailybreeze.com, if you've heard of anything similar in the South Bay.