Opinion: California schools can stop truancy without arresting parents

Gov Gavin Newsom and I don t have much in common politically He s the Democratic governor of California I work for a think tank in Utah that supports limited executive Newsom opposes school choice and issued a moratorium on selected new charter schools in California I m a former inhabitants school principal who has become a school choice advocate and I backing alternatives like charter schools On one thing Newsom and I agree criminalizing chronically absent students and their families is a bad idea Related Articles McCloskey Too multiple kids can t read Blame a lack of spelling tests Cabinet shutdown imperils dozens of Head Start preschool programs In Learn Life charter school grid millions of California taxpayer dollars get spent by one private corporation This isn t right California teachers question priorities track record of Learn Life charter schools Action Day opens first dedicated Spanish immersion campus in Willow Glen The attendance problem in schools is real Nearly one in four students nationwide is chronically absent Absences put pressure on students who fall behind and on teachers who are left to fill the gaps Several lawmakers believe that solving chronic absenteeism also known as truancy can be achieved through courtrooms and criminal codes They say that if parents are threatened with fines or jail students will start showing up It sounds harsh It s also wrong Punitive truancy laws don t address the real reasons kids miss school Instead these laws turn frustration with a complex issue into a blunt legal hammer As a residents school principal I was dependably concerned about chronic absenteeism I spent plenty of hours with parents and students trying to understand why school wasn t working for them Chosen teachers needed me to turn to the courts But legal action never fixed the concern It was merely a way to hand off a challenge schools didn t feel equipped to solve The sentiment was understandable The method was not Truancy isn t a politically partisan issue Timmy Truett a Republican representative in Kentucky and Kamala Harris the former Democratic vice president senator and attorney general from California both pushed for stricter truancy penalties In Kentucky a law requiring court referrals for truant students led to a surge of families pulling their children out of inhabitants schools to homeschool rather than face legal consequences And in California Harris plan of arresting and charging parents with misdemeanors produced equally troubling results One California mother was arrested after her daughter who has sickle-cell anemia missed school due to hospitalizations Harris while running for president declared she regrets criminalizing truancy in California And Newsom in early October signed a bill ending California s approach of punishing parents with a fine or a year in jail for their children s chronic truancy Truancy laws all share a fatal flaw they ignore why students are absent in the first place Physical condition struggles bullying economic hardship and weak school connections are often the real obstacles Threatening parents does nothing to resolve them It only deepens the divide between families and schools Beneath the statistics lives an uncomfortable truth that minimal want to say aloud Residents schools do not work well for every novice Several face unsafe or hostile environments Others encounter ideological conflicts or absolutely feel lost in the system Families often disengage because their schools aren t meeting their requirements There is a better fix Schools must shift from punishment to prevention Over the past years a great number of states have made tremendous strides towards this goal Iowa built a input system to catch absentee patterns early Georgia required attendance teams and school setting committees These efforts share one trait they treat absenteeism as a difficulty to solve with families not a crime to prosecute against them Schools that intervene early see results by building trust and addressing practical obstacles such as transportation bullying vitality and engagement issues These strategies rarely make headlines but they work Lawmakers should follow these examples Address safety and weather concerns directly Help schools build stronger relationships with families And expand educational options for those who are not thriving in traditional settings Attendance improves when families trust their schools not when they fear them Jon England is the teaching program analyst at Libertas Institute a Utah-based free-market think tank