I am Emily Patino, a current student of Austin Community College. I believe that
changes to the current truancy law will significantly improve attendance at schools in Austin,
Texas. The current truancy law in Texas states that if a student has three to four unexcused
absences in the period of four weeks, he or she is then sent to court for a hearing.
In San Antonio the school district and the court have been working together to improve
attendance. One of the many reasons for wanting to improve attendance is due to the result of
fewer funds over time. Their program has reduced the number of students facing charges for
truancy by almost half. Truancy filings in San Antonio’s biggest school district have fallen from
five thousand eight hundred
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in 2010, to two thousand and seventy this year. “San Antonio’s been a leader in showing the rest of the state that it can be done,” says Deborah Fowler of Texas Appleseed.
One of the many ways the city is keeping students out of court is by having “parent
intervention forums”. The forum is a contract where the parent and the student both sign,
which can lead to the truancy case to be dropped if he or she abides by the terms listed on the
contract. The forum is customarily comprised of avoiding any further absences, predominantly
meant for those who have accumulated enough unexcused absences to be truant. Supporters
have said it’s time they stop treating students as criminals, most of which might not have been
their fault for missing school. Often times the problem is that the family is low on income so the
child has to help out financially. How is someone supposed to be going to school early in the
morning and coming home late at night from work and still have time to do homework.
San Antonio has a very different perspective on how to address the truancy law
compared to many other cities. They are trying something new hoping the new method
progresses. “We want them to start thinking about their goals,” says Alma Lozano. Alma
Lozano is the prosecutor on the case of a young boy in the San Antonio district, who if had
lived in any other city but San Antonio, would be facing conviction for truancy. The boys
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mother said she works long hours at night because of their lack of funds. The boy is then left at home to care for himself, thus resulting in sleep deprivation from staying up all night on account of watching television.
Nobody was there to tell him that what he was doing was wrong. Since he
was lucky enough to be in the San Antonio district the judge decides to not file a report of
truancy conviction, but rather tries to find the root of the problem. The prosecutor talks to the
mother and tries to get her more involved in the young boy's life.
In the court the judges try as much as possible to steer clear from treating truancy as a
conviction. They believe the way to make attendance rates go up is to give the students a
reason that would make them want to go to school. They do that by making the students set a
goal for themselves, offering programs to help them better themselves and even helping the
students look into potential colleges. Although the court, from time to time file for truancy, but
it's seldom done.
Another effective program taking role in the municipal court in San Antonio, is using the
“parental shadowing” technique. Which is where the parent shadows the student in school so
the parent gets a feel of what the student goes thru on a day-to-day basis. With all that being
said action is taking place in San Antonio and they are having a positive outcome by doing so.
Progress has been reported and attendance rates have gone up by .5 percent, which might
not seem like a significant amount, but can mean millions of dollars in funding. San Antonio is on a well made path on how to address student problems and keeping attendance rates up and hope other cities catch to their success. Sending students to court is not the solution, but rather trying to solve the truancy problem, by figuring out the cause of students missing too much school. “The success of the program is not determined by how many cases we filed.” John Bull, judge at San Antonio’s municipal court. “The success of the program is how many cases we averted from being filed.” He added. I believe the city of Austin would benefit tremendously by following San Antonio’s methods. Changes to the truancy law need to take place. Overtime the attendance rates are sure to go up and so will the funding.
irresponsibility lead to him not attending school. This has to do with the prompt because if
Also, children of poor families dropped out of school because they felt obligated to help support their families financially. In To Kill A Mockingbird Scout describes the Ewell family, who only attend school the first day of every year because their family is poor: They come the first day every year and then leave. The truant lady gets’em here ‘cause she threatens ‘em with the sheriff, but she’s give up tryin’ to hold ‘em. She reckons she’s carried out the law just getting’ their names on the roll and runnin’ ‘em here the first day. You’re supposed to mark ‘em absent for the rest of the year (Lee 27).
There are various reasons why many juveniles are ending up in the juvenile justice system unjustly. The pipeline commences with inadequate resources in public schools. Many children are locked into second rate educational environments in which they are placed in overcrowded classrooms, insufficient funding, lack of special education services and even textbooks. This failure to meet the educational needs of children leads to more dropout rates which could also increase the risk of later court involvement. Surprisingly enough, some school may even encourage children to drop out in response to pressures from test-based accountability regimes which create incentives to push out low-performing students to increase overall test scores.
After the first year you get your licence, getting a "DUI", speeding, or getting in an accident revokes your license for six months, and to regain it you must retake the driver's ed course. The law proposes a similar punishment for having low grades: If you have a failing grade in two terms, you lose your licence for six months. This proposed law punishes a kid failing a class and a kid who physically wrecks his car at the same degree. It is absurd to hold kids at such high degree of punishment based on two grades. There are several reasons why a child might fail academically, like a loss in the family. If you do have a good reason for failing a class, you have to be reviewed by your principal and have him personally write a letter to the Department of Motor Vehicles. This tedious process unfairly gives students a very severe punishment for a minor, irrelevant
...ce they begin to see those small changed and realize that they can indeed have a positive effect on how the students view school it will motivate everyone, both the students and the faculty, to keep trying to narrow that gap that exists with the graduation rates.
Although it may seem unnecessary to hire an attorney for a school expulsion hearing, the consequences of these hearings can drastically shape your child’s educational future. Section 48900 of the California Education Code outlines several acts that a child can commit to be recommended for expulsion. These include acts committed:
children faced with the trauma of loss, they are also faced with a myriad of other
Answer: It can be a hard fight sometimes. There have been times when parents will pull their kids out of the school because they disagree. There have been times when parents will take it to court in order to have their kids stay in a general education setting, and at that point you have to rely on documentation and assessments and evaluations to help prove what’s in the best interest of the
One way to handle truancy is to enforce harsher consequences. In the student handbook it states that, “Students are expected to attend school every day it is in session.” When I read this I laughed a little to myself. I take a class with a student who will, on a good week, show up to school three out of five days. If he does show up, he will never be on time. When asked why he does not show up to school more often his usual response is, “Why should I when there is no real punish...
Students being removed from the school due to police involvmenet in removing them, may also face possible criminal charges being filed against them, for infracttionsas minimal as non-prescription drug possession or being accused of sexual harassment as mentiond previously , happened to a student for hugging a teacher as a form of solidarity. Sexual harrsamentcharges that if prosecuted can lead to a student being labeled and listed as a sex offender for life. Egregious non-violent offenses that disproportionately affect black and Latino students, and due to law enforcement modeling, sets the stage for incarceration.
On the trip I had the opportunity to experience three juvenile court trials. Two of the proceedings were related to school truancy and the third was related to substance abuse. Sitting through the truancy cases I found myself asking what it took to be brought into court for missing school. I missed numerous days of school and I never had a warning. During a break in session, I had the chance to ask the magistrate what you had to do to receive such a charge. She stated that the charge is placed when a student misses 14 days of school in a row. I thought this was absurd. Missing 14 days of school in a row seems crazy to me. I did not feel bad for the kids who came in for having this on their record. In both cases, the case had been going on for awhile and the kids had shown progress with grades and attendance. She closed the case and under rule 29 expunge the offense off both of their records. I believe the rule 29 is a phenomenal
A plea of nolo contendere based on the violation of the code section should establish a sentence. When determining the number of previous convictions or pleas of nolo contendere pursuant to the felony provisions in paragraph four only those crimes in which a conviction is given or a plea of nolo contendere is approved on or after July 1, 2008 should be recognized. Limitations on penalties should apply when a defendant has been sentenced of violating by one transaction more than one of the four provisions of subsection a of the code section. The judge has the power to suspend up to one-half of a fine under subsection c of the code section upon the defendant’s treatment in a substance abuse treatment program according to code section 40-5-1. The code section 40-6-391.3 states that a school bus driver should upon being sentenced of violating this code section while driving a school bus should be penalized by imprisonment for no less than one year nor more than five years and
A recent study (Luo, 2009) at the University of California found that children in families where the head of the household had lost a job were more likely to repeat a grade. Children feel the stress of their parents not being able to pay bills because income has become less than normal. They lose focus in the classroom. Children can no longer concentrate on the school work and study for test for the fear of losing their homes. Although these are financial issues that parents discuss...
As schools begin to develop programs that aim to improve attendance, how will they know if it is making a difference or doing what they intended? Looking only at the numbers of how many students come to school and how many
The different types of absenteeism is truancy, exclusion, school closure, school phobia or other absences due to illness or bad behavior (teachers sending pupils out of class due to poor behavior). Although children who are sent outside the class are not entirely absent from the school, this can be identified as absence as they are not participating in class. It seems that none of the various Education Acts defines truancy and nor is this lack supplied the case laws. Nor indeed have the various researchers agreed a definition. Must every child who is absent from school for whatever be cla...