Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for November 22, 2006 CARBONDALE COMBATS TRUANCY

From the Southern Illinoisan...

Carbondale council passes truancy ordinance

BY JASON LEE, THE SOUTHERN

CARBONDALE — Students caught skipping school would pay with their wallets under an ordinance passed Tuesday night by the Carbondale City Council.

City council members voted unanimously to enact a measure designed to crack down on truancy in schools by citing students who skip class as well as parents who knowingly allow them to.

“We have developed one more tool in the belt in fighting a problem that is not necessarily rampant in the schools, but is present,” said Mayor Brad Cole, who first proposed the ordinance during his recent “State of the City Address.”

The ordinance makes it illegal for any student to be absent from school “without valid cause.”

Valid cause is defined as “illness, observance of a religious holiday, death in the immediate family, family emergency, situations beyond the student’s control or such other circumstances that cause reasonable concern to the parent for the student’s safety or health.”

Any student at least 10 years old cited under the ordinance would be fined $75 to $100. Parents of children younger than 10 years old would be responsible for paying the fine.

Also, any parent who “knowingly or negligently” allows a student to be truant from school could also be fined $75 to $100.

Cole said the measure would punish those responsible for students who “disregard their obligation to go to school.”

Schools would be responsible for enforcing the ordinance, with superintendents of each district serving as the “officer to issue the truancy citations.”

Cole added that superintendents of the Carbondale high school and elementary districts supported the measure.

“This effort is designed to assist the schools to give them a mechanism to impress upon the parent and student, that if they don’t attend school, they are wasting their time,” Cole said.

Councilman Chris Wissmann said the measure wouldn’t be “an indictment of the schools,” but rather “an indictment of the parents who don’t do a good job of making sure their kids go to school.”