TheRatPack
Under penalty of law this tag not to be removed
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2003
Truancy has been a crime for quite some time. The first truancy law in the U.S. was passed in 1853. A kid who misses 30 days of school has missed 1/6 of the school year. That is not a minor issue. A middle school kid who has missed 300 school days in his career, has missed almost 2 yrs of education.
In our school district, it doesn't matter if the days are excused or unexcused they only allow 5. I can not imagine it getting to the point of 30 days. And on another note...if the child is over 10 they can be brought up on charges in our district too....sad sad!
On our DOE website it also states that in elementary and middle that attendance is used as part of the academic assessment.....so in order to get a lot of their funding and pass accreditation they have to have a higher rate of attendance.
My son has attended a public school that for the past 2-3 years has failed to become accredited due to absenteeism, even if they pass the basic skills testing, they fail due to the lack of students attending class. Then they have to give the option to the students to be bussed to another county school....that is accredited. So in the long run it does cost them, but it's much stricter then it used to be.