truancy in the news

Truancy will be preserved in the online world if professional educators have their way. After all, if we didn't have compulsory attendance law, the education industry wouldn't have a captive audience.  This arrangement is at the heart of why our schools do not work: our schools are at war with families.

What began as a seasonal few years of required attendance to get some core skills, has grown into a very long and abusive process whereby a child is in job training for 12+ years and blamed for any problems that arise.

The choice isn't between abusive policing or of complete neglect to provide, as the choice is usually framed. Lots of voices are clustered around these options, to be sure. Enforce truancy for the child's own good or eliminate government schools. This type of dialog is common when talking about education, and it reflects frustrations, but we have other choices.

We could actually consider providing community learning resources that families access as they need and want.  The vast majority of families would choose to access some or many services. Families actually want their children to succeed though poverty, stress, and the poor psychological design of schooling all take their toll. Even for families staying out of poverty, the schools waste immense amounts of student energy and time in authoritarian procedures that are relics.

Democracies do not need to police citizens in the name of education: services can be offered and families will choose what they need. Providing high-functioning social services makes a nation-state more social in positive ways and translates into stronger families, communities, and economies.

• Minnesota online schools coax prosecutors to go after truants despite outdated law | The Republic:
  

  When a Minnesota school considers a student habitually truant, it's legally obligated to notify the authorities in the students' home county — meaning an online school may work with all 87 Minnesota counties. The notification triggers a process that typically includes meetings between educators, county officials and the student's family to write a court-approved plan to get the student back to school. Violators can be sentenced to community service or fined. In very rare cases, parents can lose custody of the child. 

• The Angry Dad: Mom jailed for truancy:  

"As for the Truancy issue, my son Logan has a serious case of Asthma. The school has been very aware of this as I write it on ALL his papers every year when school starts. I even tried leaving his inhalers with the school nurse in case of emergency. But they claim that they can't have his meds there." 

What has happened to me is happening because I stood up for my son's rights. I stood up to the Truancy officer, school nurse, and principal of Fairview Elementary. I even wrote an email to the Superintendent asking for his help in resolving this issue between the Truancy Officer, School Nurse and Principal. But it went unanswered. A few weeks later, my husband and I were arrested without warning, without a S.A.R.B meeting, etc.

I am glad you posted our story on your website, as it makes us feel that there is support out there."

• In Texas, Keeping Kids In School And Out Of Court : NPR: 

"This summer, an exhaustive study by the Council of State Governments found that by 12th grade, more than half of all 14- to 15-year-olds in Texas are ticketed, expelled or suspended at least once. After they're ticketed, sent to court and fined hundreds of dollars, students aren't always allowed to go back to their home school. Instead, they're sent to an alternative school, a holding pen of sorts where kids are supposed to "learn their lesson.""

• San Francisco Schools Tackle Truancy With Innovation - NYTimes.com: 

"For decades, teachers and school districts have battled truancy, struggling to engage students who cope with economic hardship, community strife, domestic violence and drug abuse. Some students avoid school because they are not interested or because they are being bullied. But since 2008, in part because of programs like those at Downtown, the San Francisco district’s chronic truancy has dropped by 31 percent."

• Lawmakers again focus on truancy - Omaha.com: 

"But the law also has had unintended consequences because it moved away from a focus on truancy, or unexcused absences, to a broader focus on "excessive absenteeism."

Under the law, school districts must report to the county attorney all students who accumulate more than 20 absences in a school year, regardless of the reasons for the absences.

It also shifted responsibility from schools to the legal system for responding to absences.

The result has been cases like Carter's 13-year-old daughter, an A and B student and student council member who faces truancy charges in Sarpy County Juvenile Court after missing 27 school days last year.

Carter said all of the absences were health-related. Her daughter suffers severe allergies, which cause excruciating headaches and leave her vulnerable to repeat infections.

She said the problem of infections has increased this year because parents fearful of the new law are sending their sick children to school.

The truancy charges remain pending, even after Carter provided the court with doctors' notes explaining her daughter's medical problems."

• Michigan To Fine Detroit Public Schools For High Truancy 
  (huffingtonpost.com)]
  
  Jan Ellis, a department spokeswoman, said her office is working with DPS to review attendance records before making any deductions. For 2009-10, DPS lost $680,000 to low attendance.
  
  "While the forfeiture amount has yet to be determined, it is expected to be a fraction of the amount in question," Ellis said. "This issue involves classroom attendance record-keeping, as well as student attendance."

background posts

• real school reform (and a changing view of attendance)
• homeschooling is the real legacy of holt, kohl, et al and why compulsory attendance laws are limiting our ability to change schools
• voluntary attendance
• understanding school funding
• the compulsory attendance mindset
• the cost of getting tough
• semi-private clubs called schools