Kids playing hooky are in for a surprise if caught in Manhattan once public schools reopen next week.
Instead of being brought back to class or home, they’ll be taken to the city’s first “engagement center” in the basement of the Police Athletic League building in West Harlem under a pilot project launched yesterday by Mayor Bloomberg.
Punishment would give way to tutoring, counseling and one-on-one mentoring.
About 200,000 students — one in five — misses a month or more of classes each year, making them susceptible to becoming drop-outs, the mayor said.
John Feinblatt, the mayor’s criminal-justice adviser, said the city was in for the long haul.
“We will attempt to engage that kid by trying to figure out why this kid isn’t going to school, we can assign them to a mentor, we will engage with the family and we’ll make a commitment to stick with this kid over the long haul,” he said.
If the program is successful, more centers would be opened citywide, the mayor said.