Dallas (WBAP/KLIF News) – Dallas County has announced 24 recommendations that would change the way school districts handle truancy. The changes were announced Tuesday by Judge Clay Jenkins and Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa.
“A student cannot learn if they’re not in school,” Hinojosa says. “However, if a student doesn’t come to school, we need to figure out why they’re not in school.”
The recommendations were developed by a committee that includes Hinojosa, other education leaders, several judges, an assistant district attorney, Mayor Mike Rawlings and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.
The recommendations would no longer require schools to consider tardy students truant. Jenkins says schools could better handle students who are tardy, while the courts would be considered a “system of last resort,” providing counselors or family assistance.
“You might have a student who’s truant because they’re taking care of a sick relative, a student who’s truant because they’re addicted to drugs, a student who’s truant because she’s pregnant, and her clothes don’t fit, and she’s embarrassed about that,” Jenkins says.
Jenkins and Hinojosa say Dallas had 13,000 cases of truancy in the last school year, accounting for half of all truancy cases in Texas. This year, Dallas has recorded just 500 cases.
Hinojosa says the district would draw a distinction between tardiness and “complete absenteeism.”
“We needed to come up with some quick wins to benefit our students and make sure that we found a solution without having to go to the courts,” Hinojosa says.
Hinojosa and Jenkins also plan to go to the legislature to push for a bill that would give districts more time to report a truant student. They say that would give schools more time to figure out the cause of truancy.
They also hope to build support for a measure that would require districts to report truancy to prosecutors only if a student misses an entire day instead of part of a day.
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