In an article titled Truant students’ parents arrested on The Times Hearld website, District Judge Ester Casillo is quoted as saying “Once a citation for truancy is issued by this court, it is no longer a school issue but rather a court issue.” This sums up the lunacy – one institution tasked with an impossible mission ignores signs of its own failure, and then finds the ‘solution’ by passing kids and families off to yet another institution which can only offer an even less appropriate approach.

Maybe if I could suspend my lack of belief in the institution of public schooling it would make more sense. Maybe if an institution could fill the needs of children and families it would be different, but, I can’t get around the reality that schools are being asked to do the impossible – replace families – raise kids.

Sampling of truancy articles:

Truant students’ parents arrested

Child truant, parent jailed

Judge Orders Truants to Carry GPS Tracking Device

Classes starting for parents of troubled kids

School district, sheriff’s office agreement formally approved by commission

San Francisco Launches Program to Tackle Truancy

There is a thread of troubled families and lack of personal responsibility throughout these articles. Personal responsibility is one thing, responsibility to bolster a flawed institution is quite another.

4,328 students were ticketed by the school police for being truant or late to school in 2008. An average of 24 students per day. The cost of the infraction for being absent is $250 the first time, and it can increase if you reoffend. In the last school year the LASPD obtained more than $1 million.

According to the Labor/Community Strategy Center, around 12,000 students were fined in Los Angeles County during 2008. Such fines can also be issued by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the Sheriff department.

$1 million dollars revenue, is this a deficit neutral effort, or, does it generate income?

From the ‘criminals’:

A student from Manual Arts High School, who asked to be identified as “Mike J,” says that many times it is not his fault when he is late to school because sometimes the bus is late.

“Many times we prefer to go back home instead of getting ticketed by the police who stand in front of the school waiting for us,” he said.

Edith Honorato, a student at Roosevelt High School, recently wrote in her school paper, “Am I a criminal for being late to school?”

Criminalize kids early and often? What’s next? Truancy – the new gateway crime?

While this effort may generate short term statistical ‘success’, it is a jaw droopingly wrong headed, counter-productive way to treat kids.

Read Costly “Truancy Tickets” Keep LA Students at Home.