New Approach To Truancy Students Are Sent Through The Court System Long Before They Get To The Point Of Expulsion

Until now, kids who skipped school had no need to be cagey.

After all, they knew the worst that could happen was they’d be expelled.

“If he gets kicked out of school, that’s exactly what he wants in the first place,” said Mat Maughan, a Rathdrum parent who’s had troubles with a truant child. “That’s backwards. There should be efforts made to keep them in school.”

Maughan is one of several parents pushing a county-wide initiative to give police power to pick up truants and runaways.

A local truancy law may be unnecessary if a new procedure now in use by local school districts and the county juvenile prosecutors is successful.

Deputy prosecutor Jim Daugherty has been meeting with school administrators this fall to work out a means of turning around truants.

The new approach sends students through the court system long before they get to the point of expulsion.

“It’s crazy to expel kids because they won’t go to school,” he said. “We want to bring kids into the system earlier so they know there’s some teeth and consequences.”

In Spokane, a new law has led to the opening of a truancy center, where police drop off students they find roaming the streets.

In Kootenai County, the commissioners recently rejected an ordinance that would have made truancy a misdemeanor. Instead, the county will try Daugherty’s approach.

An affidavit from the school district declaring the student a habitual truant will give the prosecutor’s office authority to intervene. Until now, that intervention came too late, after the student was kicked out.

“The key is in the approach that shows a consequence quickly,” said Rose Astorquia, a vice principal at Coeur d’Alene High School.

In the past, she added, “By the time anything happened, it was too late. They’d missed so much school there was no way they could succeed if they got back in.”

Already Daugherty has received one referral from the Lakeland School District.

“It’s a classic case,” Daugherty said. “Dad sends her to school, puts her on the bus, and she doesn’t go to school.”

If the prosecutor’s office takes the case, it can be sent to juvenile court or the juvenile diversion program.

Because habitual truancy is a so-called status offense, not a crime, truants cannot be jailed or fined.

However, judges can order a variety of other punishments and order the student to attend school. Ignoring a judge’s order can land a student in jail for five days and result in a $500 fine for each count of contempt of court.

The juvenile diversion program is a voluntary alternative for many first-time offenders that involves agreeing to punishment in a written contract.

If diversion doesn’t work, the student will end up in juvenile court.

Some students skip school because they’re rebellious and bored. Parents of those children say they need more community tools to help raise their kids right.

Maughan’s 14-year-old stepdaughter was an A student but wanted to hang out with her friends rather than attend school.

By the time she was expelled for truancy, she was beyond the control of Maughan and his wife, he said. The girl became a chronic runaway.

“You’re at the point where you want to throw your hands up in the air, but you can’t because you love them,” Maughan said. “If there is some law that makes the juveniles accountable at an earlier age, it will solve a lot of problems earlier on.”

One goal of the crackdown on truants is to prevent more serious problems, Daugherty said.

“We were getting frequent cases where a kid had committed a crime, and we found out they hadn’t been going to school for a long time,” he said.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Truant policy The new procedure for truants at a glance: The school administration makes in-house attempts to change truant behavior, documents those efforts and violations of attendance regulations. The case is referred to the school board, which determines if the student has repeatedly violated attendance regulations. Administration reviews attempts to change behavior and consult with parents. Decides whether to file a petition request or if parents should be reported to prosecutor as a child protection case. Petition request is sent to prosecutor’s office. Petition is sent to juvenile court or diversion program. If diversion fails, the case goes to juvenile court. In court, the student is put on probation.