Retired Educator Pursues Truancy Effort

Truancy is more than a student and school problem, retired educator Gabriel Read believes, it's a community problem that will take a united effort of counties and individuals to toughen the state's truancy law.

One county can't do this, there are 67 counties, Read said. Highlands County has done a lot to pursue new legislation, but it should not have to do it alone, he added.

Parents and students can take advantage of the current law to delay or string out truancy cases for months, Read said. The school systems and authorities would like to get to these cases and get them resolved and move on.

Many times the judicial case is not brought up until the school year is over, he added. The goal of a truancy bill is to reduce the timelines, from "six to nine months" to six weeks, on the civil and criminal processes.

These kids, who are not in school, go out on the street and consort with other people and all kinds of bad things happen, Read said.

School Board Member Wally Randall said the legislators' attention seems to be diverted to the economic crisis, so truancy legislation has taken a back seat.

Locally, the school board declared that five tardies would be counted as one day absent, he noted. That's a way of trying to spark people into taking school attendance very serious.

Data from the Florida Department of Education shows that in the 2006-07 school year in Highlands County, 11.5 percent of the high school students were absent 21 or more days. Statewide 14.5 percent of the high school students were absent 21 or more days during the 2006-07 school year.

"There's no way we can educate a kid if we can't get him to school," Randall said. "We can't go and physically pick up every child. It's the parents' responsibility.

"We are still going to pursue legislative changes that will squarely put the responsibility of getting a child to school on the parents, where in my opinion it definitely belongs. The legislation should also give the school district some authority to enforce it when parents don't live up to their obligations under the law."

Read has pursued the issue beyond the county level.

As a member of Phi Delta Kappa, an international association for professional educators, and Optimists International, Read informed the organizations about Florida's soft truancy laws.

Next, Read plans to discuss his concerns in a meeting with the six superintendents of the Heartland Educational Consortium - Highlands, Hardee, Glades, DeSoto, Hendry and Okeechobee counties.

Read is not deterred by those who oppose strengthening the law.

A couple of state senators didn't see the need for the legislation, Read said. "We've got to get to those two because those two are the ones who blocked this before."

It took four years to get the anti-bullying bill through and now we are on the third year of the truancy bill, he noted. A lot of people in the county have been working on this and hopefully it will get through the Legislature in the spring.

Florida law defines "habitual truant" as a student who has 15 or more unexcused absences within 90 calendar days with or without the knowledge or consent of the student's parent or guardian and who is subject to compulsory school attendance.

In Texas, school districts are required to file a complaint in justice or municipal court or refer a student to a juvenile court if the student "fails to attend school without excuse" for either 10 or more days or parts of days within a six-month period or three or more days or parts of days within a four-week period.