The attendance disaster in faculties is actual. Almost one in 4 college students nationwide is chronically absent. Absences put stress on college students, who fall behind, and on lecturers, who’re left to fill the gaps.
Some lawmakers consider that fixing power absenteeism, often known as truancy, may be achieved by means of courtrooms and felony codes. They are saying that if mother and father are threatened with fines or jail, college students will begin displaying up.
It sounds harsh. It’s additionally improper. Punitive truancy legal guidelines don’t tackle the actual causes children miss college. As a substitute, these legal guidelines flip frustration with a fancy downside right into a blunt authorized hammer.
As a public college principal, I used to be at all times involved about power absenteeism. I spent many hours with mother and father and college students attempting to know why college wasn’t working for them.
Some lecturers wished me to show to the courts. However authorized motion by no means fastened the issue. It was merely a method to hand off an issue faculties didn’t really feel outfitted to resolve. The sentiment was comprehensible. The answer was not.
Truancy isn’t a politically partisan problem. Timmy Truett, a Republican consultant in Kentucky, and Kamala Harris, the previous Democratic vice chairman, senator and lawyer basic from California, each pushed for stricter truancy penalties.
In Kentucky, a 2024 legislation requiring courtroom referrals for truant college students led to a surge of households pulling their kids out of public faculties to homeschool, relatively than face authorized penalties.
And in California, Harris’ coverage of arresting and charging mother and father with misdemeanors produced equally troubling outcomes. One California mom was arrested after her daughter, who has sickle-cell anemia, missed college on account of hospitalizations.
Truancy legal guidelines all share a deadly flaw: they ignore why college students are absent within the first place.
Well being struggles, bullying, financial hardship, and weak college connections are sometimes the actual limitations. Threatening mother and father does nothing to resolve them. It solely deepens the divide between households and faculties.
Beneath the statistics lives an uncomfortable fact that few need to say aloud: Public faculties don’t work nicely for each scholar.
Some face unsafe or hostile environments. Others encounter ideological conflicts or just really feel misplaced within the system. Households usually disengage as a result of their faculties aren’t assembly their wants.
There’s a higher answer. Faculties should shift from punishment to prevention. Over the previous 15 years, many states have made great strides in the direction of this aim.
Iowa constructed a knowledge system to catch absentee patterns early. Georgia required attendance groups and college local weather committees. These efforts share one trait — they deal with absenteeism as an issue to resolve with households, not against the law to prosecute towards them.
Faculties that intervene early see outcomes by constructing belief and addressing sensible obstacles, corresponding to transportation, bullying, well being and engagement points. These methods not often make headlines, however they work.
Lawmakers ought to comply with these examples. Deal with security and local weather considerations instantly. Assist faculties construct stronger relationships with households. And broaden instructional choices for many who should not thriving in conventional settings.
Attendance improves when households belief their faculties, not after they worry them.
Jon England is the training coverage analyst at Libertas Institute, a Utah-based free-market assume tank.
