Truancy Penalties Put Parents on the Spot

In a rare test of state truancy laws, a La Verne mother was found guilty last week in Pomona Municipal Court of permitting her daughter to skip all but four days of school since September.

The ruling, which carried a $100 fine, is one of only about five such decisions over the last two years in Los Angeles County, according to school and legal officials.

Sandra Mejia, 34, was found guilty April 30 of allowing her 14-year-old daughter to remain truant from Bonita High School. Parents who knowingly permit their children to miss classes--either tacitly or by direct discouragement--can be convicted of an infraction under the state Education Code. If a child continues to skip school, the negligent parent can face a jail sentence for contempt of court.

Courts Virtually Powerless

Because the courts are virtually powerless to punish a truant, the Bonita Unified School District, which has a truancy rate ranging between 10% and 15% as compared to the statewide average of 20%, chose to seek charges against the mother. The Pomona ruling comes in the midst of a renewed debate over how best to resolve attendance problems.

Although the district was unable to use it in this case, citing a lack of cooperation from the county Probation Department, a state Education Code amendment in effect since January gives Juvenile Court judges power to deal with parents of truants. But the new law reportedly has been used only in San Bernardino County, in part because the deputy district attorney there also is chairman of the districtwide School Attendance Review Board.

Traditionally, truancy officers have had two routes for dealing with chronic attendance problems: They can prosecute the truant child or, in the absence of familial cooperation, they can prosecute the negligent parent.

To pursue the child, a district School Attendance Review Board must refer the case to the county Probation Department, which then has the option of filing it in Juvenile Court. To prosecute the parent--as officials from the Bonita Unified School District did to Mejia--the case must be referred to a district attorney, who may then file it in Municipal Court.

Used Traditional Approach

Bonita officials said they used the traditional approach, rather then applying the new law, because of the reluctance of probation officials to file truancy cases in Juvenile Court.

Municipal Court Commissioner Marc Lauper, who decided the Pomona case, said he would reconsider the fine at a May 19 review session if Mejia’s daughter could demonstrate consistent school attendance. “If you could have seen her face when I started talking about getting a fine, you’d have seen then that she was starting to respond,” Lauper said in an interview after his ruling. “I think we scared her enough.”

Since the ruling, the girl has been in class, officials said, and Mejia, who lives alone with her four children, is walking the eldest daughter to school every day and checking on her at noon to ensure that she stays in attendance. “I want her to go to school, it’s just that she doesn’t like school,” Mejia said. “Maybe somebody else will learn a lesson from this.”

The change in the Education Code--considered by many school officials to be a significant step in enforcing attendance--allows a Juvenile Court judge to act temporarily as a municipal judge, thereby enabling him to try both a truant child and the negligent parents at the same time. The legislation was necessary, because juvenile courts are part of the higher Superior Court system.

“Now the judge can deal with the problem as a total package,” said Michael McDowell, the supervising deputy district attorney for San Bernardino County. “We’re reinventing the wheel in terms of certain procedural issues.”

Successful in Prosecution

But while school officials were successful in their prosecution of Mejia, they did not take advantage of the amended code because for the last 10 years it has been virtually impossible to get a truancy case into Juvenile Court.

“We’ve gone through a long period of time where it’s been very difficult to get anything through the courts at all,” said Delbert Royer, a consultant in attendance and administrative services for the Los Angeles County Office of Education. “I personally believe we’re going to see the pendulum continue to swing back and (see) stiffening positions on the concept of getting children back in school.”

Keeping students in school is important because unexcused absences result in a reduction of state education funds paid to the school districts on the basis of average daily attendance.

Until the mid-1970s, Royer said, Juvenile Court judges regularly punished truant children, often placing chronic violators in work camps or juvenile detention centers. But as social attitudes changed over the last decade, the pendulum started to swing away from use of the criminal justice system to resolve attendance problems.

The strongest blow to attendance enforcement came in 1976 when the state Assembly voted to decriminalize truancy, stripping Juvenile Court judges of virtually all power to incarcerate or detain truant children.

“Some feel truancy offenses should not be in the system at all,” McDowell said. “(Ten years ago) those people won.”

The result, however, was that the Los Angeles County Probation Department officers almost stopped filing truancy cases in Juvenile Court because judges there could do very little to punish children simply for skipping school.

“We’re basically disappointed and frustrated in our efforts to utilize the Probation Department,” said Ron Lackey, director of educational services for the Bonita Unified School District. “They haven’t been responsive to our needs.”

Already Overburdened

Probation officials, already overburdened with huge caseloads, have said they are reluctant to file truancy cases unless the child has committed a more serious crime as well.

“We don’t file because there’s no teeth to it,” said Roseann Brossard, supervising deputy probation officer for the county Probation Department in Pomona. “We can get them declared a ward (of the court), but if a minor doesn’t go to school there’s nothing anybody can do about it.”

Truant students can be sentenced to a specialized education program where they will be more closely supervised, but unless a youth is involved in other crimes, probation officers still rarely pursue such cases.

Of the 24 cases referred by the Bonita and Claremont School Attendance Review Board to the Probation Department since last year, none has been filed in Juvenile Court, according to Marge Bromfield, who as coordinator of child welfare and attendance for the Bonita district led the fight to bring Mejia to court.

In Mejia’s case, school district officials did not even bother to refer her daughter to the Probation Department because they were certain no action would be taken.

Looked to the Parent

So Bonita school officials looked to penalize the parent.

“It’s important to me because once we can get a parent reprimanded, we’ll find that when we talk to another parent, we’re going to have a little bit more clout,” Bromfield said. “That’s the key to this thing, because the parent is responsible (for) seeing that the youngster attends school.”

Initially, Bromfield said, the school district sent Mejia a letter last September explaining that her daughter had missed at least three days of school. Another letter was sent after the ninth-grader had missed three more days.

When Mejia failed to respond to additional letters from the school district requesting a conference, Bromfield said, the case was referred to the School Attendence Review Board. A letter notifying Mejia of the meeting was delivered to her home by La Verne police officers in November, she said.

Although Mejia and her daughter appeared before the attendance board, Bromfield said that the daughter continued to skip school.

Referred to Hearing Officer

The case was then referred to a hearing officer under the district attorney’s jurisdiction, but Mejia again failed to show up for a scheduled conference, Bromfield said. The hearing officer subsequently filed the case with the deputy district attorney in Pomona.

“I have never received any letters from the school,” said Mejia, noting that the only exception was her summons to appear before the attendance board. Mejia said that she missed the conference with the hearing officer because she could not find a baby sitter for her 2-year-old son.

“She gets ready and acts like she’s going to school,” Mejia said of her daughter. “Then I find out she’s not in school. I’ve grounded her and told her that she has to go to school. But I guess it didn’t really sink in.”

Bonita serves 9,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. While the majority of parents are responsible about getting their children to school, Bromfield said, a small number consistently hamper her efforts to crack down on truancy.

33 Students Last Year

Last year, 33 students from the Bonita Unified School District were called before the attendence review board, she said. Of those, only two cases could not be resolved without the help of a hearing officer.

“Generally what we have is the parents doing all they can and the child defying them,” Bromfield said. But because Mejia was uncooperative, Bromfield said, she should be held responsible for her daughter’s truancy.

The first step toward making parents more accountable was a 1981 state law that reduced from a misdemeanor to an infraction the penalty for parents who willfully permitted their children to remain truant. Although the status of the crime was reduced, the aim was to make such cases easier to prosecute because an infraction does not entitle the defendant to a jury trial.

Still, negligent parents almost never ended up in court because district attorneys have been reluctant to burden Municipal Court judges with truancy cases.

Like a Speeding Ticket

“Municipal Court has had a tendency to say, ‘Why is this case over here?’ ” McDowell said. If the case was filed, he said, judges would “treat it like a speeding ticket and tell them to go away.”

John Hayes, the deputy district attorney filing Mejia’s case, said that it was the first action he has ever taken against a negligent parent.

“This case seemed appropriate to me,” Hayes said. “It was particularly egregious because the little girl wasn’t getting any schooling at all.”

The most recent law, drafted by Assemblyman Bill Leonard (R-Redlands), was sought by legal officials in San Bernardino County, who were seeking a more effective way in dealing with truancy. The new amendment is aimed at encouraging the prosecution of such cases because the Juvenile Court judge now has some power, at least over the parent, and the already crowded Municipal Courts need not be burdened with problems of truancy.

Parents Convicted

Under the new law, three sets of parents in San Bernardino County already have been convicted in Juvenile Court and charges have been filed against another 13, McDowell said.

“With your child present and a Superior Court judge looking down on you, it has an effect,” he said.

The strengthened code, however, only has teeth if it is used. And for most probation officers, often concerned with more serious offenses, truancy cases rarely rate a high priority.

“In order to get something like this going, it takes the impetus of somebody in particular,” such as a school district or attendance review board, said Barry Nidorf, chief probation officer for the Los Angeles County Probation Department. “While we see truancy as a problem, it really isn’t a probation problem. When we’re dealing with a bunch of murderers and very serious felony offenders, there’s naturally going to be an emphasis on those kind of offenses.”

Similarly, Juvenile Court judges are reluctant to encourage an influx of truancy cases based on the amended Education Code.

‘Wouldn’t Close Door’

“I certainly wouldn’t close the door to it,” said Pomona Superior Court Commissioner Benson Schaffer, who is assigned to Juvenile Court duty. “On the other hand, I don’t think I would go out with a sign and advertise for it.”

A case currently before the state Supreme Court could change the picture for truant children. Known as “Michael G.,” the case centers on a Fresno boy who was placed on probation after a Juvenile Court found him guilty of truancy. When the youth continued to miss classes, the judge detained the boy for 48 hours, arguing that while he was powerless to punish the youth for skipping school, he could penalize him for violating probation.

Many school and legal officials feel the Supreme Court’s decision on the judge’s right to incarcerate “Michael G.” will have a far-reaching effect on the way Juvenile Courts handle truancy cases. But until that decision, which is not expected for several months, the attendance debate remains focused on the most recent change in the Education Code.

“The law was meant to make the process less cumbersome,” said Paul Woodruff, a spokesman for Assemblyman Leonard in San Bernardino County. “But if a judge or a probation officer doesn’t want to use it, there’s nobody to force them to do it.”

TRUANCY LAW CHANGES

1974--Districtwide school attendance review boards mandated by state to resolve truancy cases.

1976--Truancy decriminalized, restricting the power of courts to penalize truant children.

1981--Penalty for negligent parents reduced from a misdemeanor to an infraction.

1985--Juvenile Court judges given jurisdiction over the parents of truant children.