Parents Are Paying for Kids’ Truancy

Staring down a courtroom full of truant teenagers, her badge pinned where everyone could see it, Ventura County prosecutor Wendy Macfarlane made it clear she won’t tolerate ditching.

“All of you are here today because there’s an attendance problem,” she said.

But the deputy district attorney wasn’t talking just to the shirking students. She also wanted the parents in the room to get the message.

“We’re equal-opportunity here; we can prosecute the parent and the child. Both of you will get a ticket,” Macfarlane said at an anti-truancy assembly at Ventura County Superior Court.

The county is taking a more aggressive approach toward parents than most California counties, reflecting a shift in its stand on truancy. Rather than punishing only students for their absences, parents and guardians are being held accountable and sometimes jailed.

Just three months into this new approach, prosecutors and school officials say it is fixing a problem that drains money from schools and condemns students to crime and poverty.The reason for the success is simple. “Parents don’t like to get in trouble, and kids don’t want their parents to get in trouble,” said Nancy Bradford, director of administrative support services for Ventura Unified School District.

The district attorney’s office and the Student Attendance Review Board have been teaming up since 1998 to use the threat of the law to deter students from ditching school. But to get a minor to a court hearing on a truancy citation can take as long as four months -- nearly half the school year, Macfarlane said. It is not an effective deterrent.

Now, a truant student’s parent or guardian receives the citation and, as with a parking ticket, has 30 days to pay the fine or contest it.

“It’s an immediate response to the problem,” Macfarlane said.

Fines and court costs for truancy infractions range from $271 to more than $1,300 for a third offense. The money will be returned to schools to offset the state funding they lose when students are absent.

Since July, the district attorney’s office has issued about 60 truancy citations to adults and 12 to students. In the previous school year, 29 adults and 398 students were cited.

California’s education code requires children to be enrolled in school from age 6 to 18, unless they have graduated from high school. A student is truant if he misses three full days of school in one school year without a valid excuse.

Being late or absent for any 30-minute period on three occasions also classifies a student as truant.

The county Truancy Referral and Prosecution Program sends warning letters to truant students and their parents, followed by a review by the attendance board, and then fines and potential jail time for the parents.

“Get them to school to protect yourself,” Macfarlane told parents at her recent presentation in court. She is one of two prosecutors who handle truancy cases.

District attorneys throughout the state have assigned deputies in recent years to combat truancy full time. It’s an investment, prosecutors say, that will lighten their caseload in years to come.

“If we can keep kids in school, we are a lot less likely to see them end up in gangs,” said Santa Clara County Deputy Dist. Atty. Lois Baer.

Counties have devised varying programs to combat the same problem. Los Angeles County will prosecute parents of elementary school students but figures that by high school, rebellious teenagers are to blame.

To take their parents to court “really is adding insult to injury,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard de la Sota.

Even the prosecution of parents of younger students is infrequent, he said.

Orange County requires problem students and their parents to appear in court each month to check on school attendance. The county has only 30 active cases in its system, a prosecutor said.

And in San Diego County, the common system of warning letters, assemblies and separate courts for truancy includes incentives: Schools give out pizza, doughnuts and ice pops on days when students are more likely to ditch.

Although Ventura County’s focus is now on parents, students still face penalties, including assigned community service, work study and weekend classes. A truant student risks losing his or her work permit and driver’s license and can be barred from playing on school athletic teams.

Valid excuses for missing school include illness, medical appointments, religious holidays, court appearances and funerals. But Macfarlane assures students that she’s wise to those kids whose “Uncle Bob” dies every month.

The district attorney’s monthly presentations familiarize parents with classes and counseling offered by school districts, police departments and nonprofit organizations. The resources aim to help parents regain the upper hand with their “strong-willed” children.

Last month, Macfarlane offered parents her own advice for rousing a child who doesn’t get up in the morning to go to school: Fill a bucket with ice-cold water and dump it on them.

“Make sure it gets all over the bed, because there aren’t many people who will sleep in a cold, wet bed,” she suggested.

Looking over her son’s attendance record, Virginia Lemos was surprised to see how many classes he had missed at Adolfo Camarillo High School.

“I make sure he goes every morning and I pick him up,” Lemos told the school’s attendance advisor. “How’s he getting out of campus?”

Hanging his head, the teenager, Jonah Howard, sounded a little incredulous himself. “They’ve got cameras everywhere,” he said.

Both mother and son are thinking a military school might be good for Jonah. Until then, Lemos will take time off work to accompany her son to school.

“I’m going all six periods -- to embarrass him,” she said.

Lemos and Jonah were among about 120 students and parents who came to Ventura County’s recent assembly. Others were turned away at the courtroom door.

The reason?

They showed up late.