Parents of Truant Girl Prosecuted

The district attorney’s office has taken the rare step of filing criminal charges against the parents of a 6-year-old Santa Ana girl who repeatedly skipped class.

The misdemeanor allegations of contributing to the delinquency of a minor were leveled against Roberto Lua and Flora Diaz after continued attempts by educators and social workers failed to improve the child’s sporadic attendance. They also were cited for an alleged violation of a provision of the state Education Code governing truancy.

“Criminal prosecution in these types of cases is something that we use only as a very last resort,” said Assistant Dist. Atty. Jack Sullens. “We don’t file too many of these because we try to keep the child in school and resolve the situation through other means, usually counseling and referrals to other agencies.”

Filing formal charges against parents in truancy cases is so rare that neither Sullens nor a Santa Ana Unified official could remember the last time it happened.

But this girl’s case was extreme, according to a police report obtained by The Times. The girl, who was a first-grader at the time, missed class 29 days in two months last year.

Truancy is defined by the state Education Code as three or more unexcused absences in a school year.

Lua and Diaz pleaded not guilty to the charges in March and are scheduled to appear in court Friday for a pretrial hearing.

Sullens said prosecutors would like to strike an agreement with both parents at the hearing to get the child back in school and avoid a trial.

According to the police report, Lua and Diaz never followed through on offers of help from school officials for their troubled daughter, who consistently cried, screamed and threw tantrums at school.

Dragging Girl to School

In an interview earlier this year at the family’s Santa Ana home, Diaz said she and her husband were being unfairly prosecuted. They wanted their daughter to attend school, but she simply refused, sometimes spinning into temper tantrums when told to put on her clothes.

Once, she scratched her husband when he tried to drag her to school, Diaz said.

“The only thing we can do is to drag her to school, but even that doesn’t work,” said Diaz, who has four other children.

Diaz, who does not drive, also said that a health crisis with another child contributed to her 6-year-old daughter’s delinquency last year. The mother said she did not have time to take her child to school because their 1-year-old daughter had been in the hospital for three weeks after being scalded by soup.

Both Sullens and Santa Ana Unified officials declined to discuss the specifics of the case because it involves a minor. It is unclear whether the child has attended class during the current academic year, which began this month in Santa Ana’s year-round schools.

“Attendance is really important, not only for student achievement but just for overall student development,” said Peggy Adin, Santa Ana’s director of pupil support services. “And it is required by law for all students between the ages of 6 and 18. It’s our responsibility to enforce that.”

An attorney with the public defender’s office who is representing Lua also would not comment on the case.

Staff members at Washington Elementary visited the girl’s home and referred Lua and Diaz to agencies that provide counseling and parenting classes at little or no cost, according to the police report.

When the parents did not act on these referrals and the unexcused absences continued, the first-grader’s case was sent to the district’s Student Attendance Review Board.

Only about 2% of truancy cases cannot be resolved at a school site, Adin said.

At a meeting with the review board in December, Lua and his daughter both signed a paper pledging that the child would attend school on time and visit community agencies that could help with her behavioral problems, the police report said.

The document they signed also included the warning, “We are aware that, should we choose not to follow the above recommendations, further action may be taken, which may include . . . the referral of the parent(s) to the district attorney’s office.”

Probation Sought

After the hearing, Lua’s daughter missed class from Jan. 3 to 13.

On Jan. 12, Santa Ana police found the child at home with her mother, apparently healthy and with no obvious reason for her absence. They cited Lua and Diaz on suspicion of encouraging a minor to be delinquent.

If convicted, both parents could be sent to jail for up to six months and fined several hundred dollars, Sullens said. But prosecutors don’t plan to seek such punishment.

“In a case such as this, what we’re really looking for is probation with certain conditions that would effectively get the child back into the school system,” Sullens said. “There’s no attempt to be punitive.”