Trouble for Truants : New Law Means Tickets, Court Dates and Fines for Skipping School

An El Camino Real High School junior parked his car outside campus Monday mid-morning, grabbed his backpack and started heading to class.

At 10:15, two hours after school had begun, Los Angeles Police Officer Mike Piceno pulled up next to the 16-year-old and shouted out the window: “Hi. How old are you? Are you just getting to school?”

Busted.

Minutes later, the boy nervously held a ticket in his hand with a court date to mark on his calendar.

Across the city Monday, police officers were armed with a new device to curb truancy: their ticket pads.

Section 45.04 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code became effective Monday, part of a citywide crackdown on truancy. Hooky-playing youngsters under 18 face a $250 fine, community service and ultimately they could lose their drivers’ licenses. The youths will be required to be accompanied by parents or guardians when they appear in court.

For Piceno, who patrols schools for the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley Division, the new law is a godsend.

“This is a great tool because we can actually make the parents accountable for their children’s actions,” Piceno said. “Kids--and their parents--will have to prove they are legitimately out of school.”

The El Camino junior is dreading just that. “I have to talk to my parents--they’re going to be mad,” he said, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “I wasn’t ditching . . . I got a flat tire and I had to drop my sister off.”

It was that long explanation that led Piceno to break out the ticket pad. “It’s a judgment call, sometimes,” Piceno said, back in his patrol car. “Things happen. But these kids have been warned--at this school, especially. If he was 10 or 15 minutes late, that would have been different. It’s 10:15.”

In the course of a few hours, Piceno stopped more people for looking like truants than actual school-skipping students. But he turned those stops into mini-civics lessons.

At one such stop, Piceno asked two youthful-looking men with backpacks if they were Taft High School students. When the men said they were waiting for a bus to take them to Pierce College, Piceno explained the new law and talked to them about their courses.

“It’s good to talk to kids--that’s an important part of the job--to make contact and it doesn’t have to be negative,” Piceno said. “The last thing I want--especially these days--is for them to stereotype police officers.”

In all, the West Valley Division police officers ticketed about 15 hooky-playing students Monday. Most of those tickets were written by the division’s two officers who patrol schools.

Detective William Seeley of the West Valley Division said the officers wrote five tickets in the first hour; three of those were written at 8:40 a.m., 10 minutes after the ordinance became effective.

Under the law, written by City Councilwoman Laura Chick, students 18 and under can be cited if they are out of school without a valid excuse between 8:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Legitimate excuses include, among other things, court or doctor appointments or the student being accompanied by a parent.

Previously, police officers were unable to do much else aside from warn students to return to class.

School district police, who also are allowed to ticket truants, wrote 13 tickets citywide on the first day of the new ordinance.

“They have not gotten ticket-happy,” said School Police Chief Wes Mitchell. “None of us have decided to reprioritize our resources to focus on this. We weren’t going to go out there and write tons of tickets.”

Some police officers said they couldn’t even find truants Monday morning.

“Our officers are saying that it’s like the streets are empty,” said Detective Nancy Lyon, the juvenile coordinator for the Foothill Division. “Even areas that we always have a ton of truants--nobody’s there.”

Across the district, schools notified students--and their parents--about the new law and some teachers reminded students last week that police would be ticketing.

Even the El Camino junior, who was handed a ticket Monday morning, said his teachers had warned him about the consequences of ditching.

“I hate this now,” he said, glumly.