While California’s school truancy law remains on the books, school districts in recent years appear to have become less and less likely to enforce punitive measures against parents.
Phone calls, emails and letters for meetings are what parents should expect if their child truant. If those steps don’t get the child back into school, state law gives districts the right to take parents to court.
But how often that happens is up to school officials and prosecutors. Punitive measures have been shown to be less effective, if the reason for a child missing school is beyond the parent’s control.
While parents have been arrested in California for a child being habitually absent from school, it is unclear how many cases resulted in criminal charges. According to state law, a district can declare a student truant and refer them to the district attorney after three unexcused absences of more than 30 minutes during the school year, potentially facing fines and even jail time.
“It’s fair to say that most districts go beyond what the law requires in terms of trying to address these challenges internally at the district level prior to engaging the criminal justice system,” said Jonathan Raven, assistant CEO of the California District Attorneys Association.
State law gives prosecutors wide discretion over how to charge parents when their child is truant, from an infraction to a misdemeanor, contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
In California, the percentage of chronically absent students skyrocketed from the pre-pandemic rate of 12.1% in 2018-19 to 30% in 2021-22, after the pandemic. The percentage dropped to nearly 25% in 2022-23. The penalties could be applied if a student was habitually truant, meaning they missed 10% or more of the school year and only after parents had been offered a range of support services to address the student’s truancy.
California’s law specifies that with students who are habitually truant, the goal is to keep young people out of the juvenile justice system and in school.
While six out of 10 absences were excused during the 2022-23 school year, four out of 10 were unexcused, state data shows. Both numbers were similar to pre-pandemic levels.
Educators said constant communication with families — such as phone calls, emails, texts, letters and direct, in-person contact — as a powerful solution to chronic absences.
If that communication doesn’t result in the student attending school regularly, the family is then referred to the local student attendance review board. SARB will open a case during which the family must sign an attendance contract stipulating their child will attend school regularly. SARBs, help truant students and their parents solve school attendance problems through the use of available community resources. Truancy courts were created where the penalties could be deferred so long as the students begin attending school.
California’s law specifies that with students who are habitually truant, the goal is to keep young people out of the juvenile justice system and in school.
State education law lists over a dozen reasons for excusing students from school, but most excused absences, school officials say, are related to illness and mental health. While six out of 10 absences were excused during the 2022-23 school year, four out of 10 were unexcused, state data shows.
Jennifer McHugh, a deputy district attorney in Yolo County, considers it “very unlikely” that she would support jailing parents in truancy cases because once the case is over, “have you really solved the problem?”
In the last year, McHugh got school district referrals for 15-20 students who were excessively truant.
“In the past year, it’s only been one district that’s sent me names of truant students, and I don’t think they’re sending me everyone who’s been truant three or more times, because those would be way more people,” said McHugh. “They’re sending me the people who are excessively truant, you know, 60, 70, 80% of the time.”
Those students and their families entered mediation with the district attorney’s office. During mediation, McHugh meets for 30 minutes to an hour at the county office of education — to sign an attendance contract. The point of the contract is not perfect attendance; rather, “good enough” attendance is what McHugh is looking for in order to avoid further court involvement.
Of the 15-20 students in mediation, only two cases were filed against parents. In one case, the student began attending school and the case was dismissed. The second case is pending.
Impacts of targeting chronic absenteeism
Another issue is who is targeted when district attorneys get involved in fighting truancy or chronic absenteeism.
“The problem is having kids being labeled unexcused, it’s not equally distributed,” said Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit that works to improve student attendance.
Her research on unexcused absences, published last year in a PACE report, also found that California “schools serving more socioeconomically disadvantaged students communicate more punitive approaches.”
Schools serving students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged were more likely “to publish policies stating that truancy would result in suspension of driver’s licenses, loss of school privileges like extracurricular participation, and Saturday school or in-school detention.
Researchers reviewed the school handbooks of 40 California middle and high schools — half of the schools had a population of over 90% of socioeconomically disadvantaged students and the other half had a population of less than 50% of socioeconomically disadvantaged students.
There are some biases in the system “around how absences are treated and who gets labeled unexcused,” Chang told EdSource. “And sometimes that’s because we don’t have the supports and resources to really do outreach to families.”
She added, “By having chronic absence as an accountability metric, you are saying: ‘schools, you’ve got to do something.’ There is a pretty broad standing consensus that you want to invest in prevention first and you use a legal system as a last resort.”
Betty Márquez Rosales is based in Los Angeles and covers juvenile justice, youth homelessness and other education topics.
