State lawmakers introduced a bill to tackle school truancy on several fronts, including collecting more data in a uniform manner so Ohio policymakers understand the scope of the problem.
As it is, Ohio’s 613 public school districts vary on how they count and report unexcused absences, when they send notice to parents and when they refer cases to juvenile courts, said House Education Committee Chairman Andrew Brenner, R-Powell.
Brenner said the bill focuses on encouraging districts and parents to do early intervention when students are truant, noting that the more school days kids miss the more they fall behind and the less they want to return to class.
State Rep. Jeff Rezabek, R-Clayton, a lawyer who specializes in juvenile law, said the problems are fixable. Rezabek said in one case he was appointed guardian ad litem for a girl who was chronically truant but the school district, courts and children’s services failed to fully address the problem for months. The child missed roughly half of the 180 school days in a year, he said.
Rezabek, who is co-sponsoring the bill, said the goal is to have a team approach that corrects chronic truancy before the child and family are referred to juvenile court. “We want to make sure that we’re giving the schools and the families the tools that they need to keep them coming to school,” Rezabek said.
Brenner said he would like to pass the bill by late May so districts have time to implement changes for the following school year.
Under current law, students ages 6 to 18 are habitually truant if they miss five or more consecutive days or more than six days in a month or 12 or more days in a school year. Parents or guardians are legally responsible for making students attend. And districts are required to give written notice to parents when their students are truant.
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