Lincoln Nebraska school says truancy program a success

LINCOLN (AP) — Every two weeks, the Park Middle School multipurpose room becomes a courtroom complete with judicial bench and judge, attorneys and defendants — and their parents.

Alissa Harrison, an eighth-grader who loves photography but until recently did not love school, showed up like clockwork twice a month last semester — a defendant working to change her ways.

She thinks she has, with the help of the mock courtroom and all those who took the time to make it happen: the judge and the attorneys, the counselor and therapist and principal.

“It changed me a lot,” she said. “The people there...