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Highlands Today

Truancy Bill

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Gabriel Read

Published: August 25, 2008

The Children's Services Council will hold its meeting on Wednesday.

One issue on the agenda will be a Truancy Bill Resolution. The Florida State Legislature passed the Bullying Bill this year after four long years of effort. This will be the third year of efforts to persuade the legislature to pass this companion Truancy Bill.

The local Highlands County School Board has passed elements of its school regulations pertaining to bullying and truancy to more efficiently manage conduct on campus, but it is the state law and regulations which need to be updated for all 67 counties, to ensure a safe and suitable environment for students to learn in our public schools.

Truancy is one significant consequence of bullying. One only has to note the level and intensity of destructive and violent behavior by students on and off campus, in news reports, to know that our educational institutions are in peril.

The fact that only 69 percent of our students graduate should clearly be alarming, but the serious nature of the conduct demonstrated these past few years mandates that measures be taken to actually provide our teachers and administrators the authority to maintain a viable learning environment without fear of retribution and lawsuits.

One key element of the proposed Truancy Bill is a revised format of judicial process, both civic and criminal, to reduce the time to resolve truancy cases, like from 69 months down to six weeks.

The South Florida district of Optimist International and several county and state organizations are endorsing this effort. The citizens and especially parents are urged to contact their state representatives and senators to consider this proposal.

Gabriel Read
Sebring

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