Students’ absences get parents arrested

Warning, DeKalb County parents: If your child is chronically absent from school, the law could be looking for you.

The county began cracking down on school truancy by arresting nine parents. The parents were picked up Tuesday, spent the night in jail and appeared in orange jail uniforms Wednesday morning to have bonds set on misdemeanor charges of educational neglect.

“This is just the tip,” warned Robert James, the county’s solicitor general.

Fifty more parents in the county risk being arrested because they haven’t complied with earlier orders to get their children to school regularly or to participate in diversion programs.

The arrests represent a mighty step as schools throughout the nation —- and the metro area —- grapple with absenteeism, which affects not only school funding, but prevents schools from meeting their academic goals.

In the last school year, 6.3 percent of Georgia elementary and middle school students missed more than 15 days of classes.

Those figures include students who had legitimate excuses, such as long-term illnesses —- but they do not include high school students, who may legally drop out when they reach 16 years of age.

In DeKalb, Tuesday’s arrests marked the first time officers searched out parents to serve warrants. It mirrors a similar crackdown four years ago in Milwaukee, when police in that city staged a weeklong push to arrest parents of students classified as habitual truants. Thirty parents either were arrested or came into court voluntarily.

Most of the parents facing arrests in DeKalb have children who have missed 40 to 50 days of school.

In addition, 188 DeKalb parents are named in citations requiring them to answer educational neglect charges.

Parents can be charged with educational neglect when a child has more than five unexcused absences in a school year.

James said his office offers a diversion program for parents and typically does not take a parent to court until there are at least 12 unexcused absences in a single 180-day school year.

Parents who are convicted can be jailed for 30 days, ordered to perform community service and fined up to $100.

James recently offered parents two “amnesty days” to meet with authorities and avoid arrest. Thirty-nine parents, he said, responded to that offer.

Parents often say that their children were sick or are being home schooled but cannot produce proof, James said. Others say they just cannot control their children, even those as young as 7 years old.

“If children are not in school, teachers cannot teach,” James said.

Staff writer Kristina Torres contributed to this article.

TAKING NAMES

Most large metro Atlanta districts have shown improvements in school absenteeism.

> In DeKalb, the absenteeism rate during the last school year dropped from 8.4 percent to 6.9 percent.

> Cobb County dropped from 5.9 percent to 4.8 percent.

> Gwinnett County dropped from 5.2 percent to 4.5 percent.

> Fulton County dropped from 7.1 percent to 6.8 percent.

> The Atlanta Public Schools figure increased from 4.6 percent to 5.4 percent.