A new county-wide truancy policy will soon bring stiffer guidelines and more severe punishment for students who habitually miss school.

Monday, August 28, 2000

A new county-wide truancy policy will soon bring stiffer guidelines and more severe punishment for students who habitually miss school.

The new attendance requirements are the result of Ohio Senate Bill 181 and will take effect on Labor Day, school officials said.

"Legislature realizes that we can’t teach students if they’re not there in the classrooms," county school Superintendent Harold Shafer said. "We’re (the Lawrence County Board of Education) in the process of putting together a new attendance policy in a joint effort with 30 administrators, the juvenile judge and the prosecutor’s office that is directly the result of Senate Bill 181. We are required to have the truancy policy in place by Aug. 31, but schools will need to implement it by Sept. 4."

The new legislation was recently passed as a result of several other state-imposed laws that have set tougher standards on schools, Shafer added.

He said many of the new guidelines have been part of the current truancy policy for quite some time, but the county’s school systems will need to make several changes.

"The new policy will divide repeated unexcused absences into two categories," Shafer said. "The first category of offenders will be known as "habitual truants" and will be used to classify any students who miss five days consecutively out of seven days a month. The second category is known as "chronic truants" and will involve any students who miss seven consecutive days out of 10 days a month."

He said both categories will involve punishment of the offender and the parents of the student if they, are found guilty of contributing to the truancy.

The new rule provides more flexibility between excused and unexcused absences, but if a student has a large number of unexcused absences, he or she will face penalties, he added.

Students who continually miss school could face being removed from the home and parents could be required to attend truancy classes, Shafer said.

"We are taking several extra steps to catch the problem early," he said. "Schools having a truancy problem with a student will be sending letters to parents when a student misses three days unexcused consecutively. The prosecutor’s office will also be sending a letter to the parents. Both letters will require the parent to contact the school to explain what the problem is. If a student misses six days, the same letters will be sent to the parents and will require them to meet with school officials."

Although truancy is not a problem in the county, Shafer said the state requires every county to implement the new laws.

"We currently have a county-wide attendance record somewhere between 93-95 percent," he said. "That’s much better than bigger schools such as Cleveland or Cincinnati. We don’t have a serious problem with attendance, but the whole idea behind this new policy is to provide the kids with a better education. We want to better prepare them for what’s ahead of them. We want to save kids from failing."