Coleville, CA (Mono County)
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024
All states have passed compulsory attendance laws requiring that students in a certain age range attend school. Exceptions vary by state. Sadly, in spite of these laws, nearly one in four students are chronically absent.
Students and their parents can face penalties for truancy. Some states take a punitive approach to truancy, allowing referrals to juvenile court for truant students and imposition of criminal charges on parents. The latter can result in hefty fines and even jail time.
For example, a 2024 Kentucky law required that a school refer a student to the County Attorney for "formal court action" if a student accumulates 15 or more unexcused absences. Until Governor Newsom repealed the policy in October of 2025, California's truancy laws allowed parents to be fined up to $2,000 or sentenced to up to a year in jail if their child was chronically truant (missed 10% of the school year). In 2017, ten Merced County parents were charged with a misdemeanor for their children's absences.
Despite a recent shift away from punitive truancy policies, 20 states still require schools to alert courts if a student is truant.
Greenville, CA (Plumas County)
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2012
Rural communities are especially susceptible to truancy. The National Rural Education Association found that "[n]early one in seven rural students experiences poverty, one in 15 lacks health insurance, and one in 10 has changed residence in the previous 12 months." Students in schools with greater populations of students in poverty are three times as likely to be chronically absent. Additionally, the spatial isolation of rural areas means that rural students typically travel farther to get to school and may have a more difficult time accessing transportation. The transportation issue, along with limited funding, also means that rural schools have less access to extracurriculars. leading to students being less engaged in their school community. The lack of opportunities is not a new problem; this blog post from 2014 discusses the struggles related to student involvement in rural schools.
Truancy laws are ineffective
Truancy laws are ineffective at decreasing school absence because they do not address the underlying reasons why students are absent in the first place.
For example, in a New York Times Magazine story on homelessness in rural areas, author Samantha Shapiro explained a crucial paradox:
Students who do not have a stable place to live are unable to attend school regularly, and failing to graduate from high school is the single greatest risk factor for future homelessness.
This is just one example of how truancy laws fail to address the problem and instead act punitively. As expressed by California Assembly Member Patrick Ahrens, the sponsor of California's bill repealing criminal fines and jail times, "[f]ining or imprisoning parents did nothing to get kids the education and support they need."
The truancy problem is compounded by rural school funding issues in states where school funding is directly tied to attendance. Six states use average daily attendance (ADA) to determine a student count for funding allocations; they are California, Texas, Idaho, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Missouri. Linking ADA to funding means districts with higher rates of chronic absences are hurt financially. This makes it even more difficult for those schools to address truancy issues.
Better solutions to chronic absences
While punitive policies are ineffective, other interventions have proved helpful. One study found that truancy decreased by 5% when schools sent simple, periodic, personalized messages to parents about their child's attendance. These messages used templates that automatically pulled information about a student, including their name, details of absences, and goals for decreasing absences. These notices are easily sent to parents to keep them better informed.
Data systems, such as Iowa's (uses a system that provides near real-time absence data to schools), that catch absentee patterns early and allow schools to intervene earlier are more effective. Prevention –not punishment– should be the focus of school policies to decrease truancy.
3 comments:
I appreciate the straightforward way in which this post speaks to the need for reform in truancy law. This is a body of law that is failing students and families on the whole, primarily because it does "not address the underlying reasons why students are absent in the first place." Punishing truancy with more time away from school is a plainly paradoxical approach. As research reveals that high school graduation closely correlates with risk for experiencing homelessness, primary education feels like the perfect place to lead with restorative practices that prioritize keeping kids in school. Restorative frameworks, rather than punitive ones, are more likely to encourage student and parent participation in connecting with resources to address the circumstances that lead to truancy in the first place (housing insecurity, lack of transportation, etc.).
I think here we are running into a problem of “everything everywhere all at once”. Yes, truancy laws can end up being counterproductive. Hard to take your kid to school when you are in prison. Separating families over truancy also seems like a disfavorable policy. On the other hand, it is just very difficult if not impossible for some people to get their children to school. It is also very hard for school systems to reach out to some of these kids. How about homeschooling? Well, that is not a favored policy at the moment either. Well, maybe truancy is not that bad? Actually, it can be and it is. I think I read in some school district in the East Coast there was a school in which a kid had only attended class under 10% of the year, and he was actually above average in terms of attendance. So, something has got to give. Personally, I think that some of these kids would benefit from remote instruction. It is probably easier to shoot WiFi beams at these kids houses than it is to get their parents to find the means to get them to school on a consistent basis.
Respectfully, I would like to counter that I am not sure if online schooling would be better for children. Attention spans are at an all time low and being online and at home could potentially make it harder for students to pay attention during a lesson. Also, I think it is important for kids to go to school and socialize with each other. Socializing is very important at a kids to be able to learn how to interact in the real world, especially now that we are living in this digital age. But I agree that these school systems are struggling and there has to be better solutions for these communities.
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