District Attorney John Sarsfield hammered home a message to more
than 100 parents Friday morning:
”
In order for your children to succeed, they need to be in
school.
”
Hollister – District Attorney John Sarsfield hammered home a message to more than 100 parents Friday morning: “In order for your children to succeed, they need to be in school.”
The district attorney’s office collaborated with Hollister School District and sent 400 letters to parents of truant children, asking them to attend the meeting and learn about absences and the importance of their children’s attendance.
“What we’re doing here is making sure we all get off to a fresh start this year,” Sarsfield told the crowd. “If a student misses 10 days every year, by the time they graduate high school they will have missed a full year of school.”
The Hollister School District has a 7 percent truancy rate for its approximately 6,000 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, according to district officials.
“Our No. 1 goal this year is to make sure all students are in school and learning,” Connie Childers, the at-risk advocate for the school district, has said.
The district attorney’s office began a truancy mitigation program last year that holds parents responsible for their child’s unexcused absences, and Friday’s meeting was to inform them of the rules and consequences. This is the first meeting the district attorney has held, and his office got the idea from Monterey County. The San Benito County Office of Education is working along side the district attorney, with it’s new attendance campaign called “Every Day Counts,” which is a county-wide attempt to keep kids in school.
Following Sarsfield’s introductions, Hollister Police Chief Jeff Miller spoke about the importance of keeping kids in school and off the streets.
“We know kids will find things to occupy their time if they’re not in school… they will become prey,” Miller said. “There are people out there who want to hurt your children, people who will coerce them.”
One of the main goals of the meeting was to explain the difference between excused and unexcused absences, and Deputy District Attorney Denny Wei gave a presentation about the right and wrong reasons for kids to miss school.
Parent Cynthia Campos attended the meeting and said the presentation was very helpful.
“It helped me understand more about what an excused and unexcused absence is,” she said.
The report stated that three unexcused absences or tardies where the student is more than 30 minutes late, or a combination of the two, makes the student a “truant.” If a student is considered truant, parents can be prosecuted and fined up to $1,000 for repeat offenders. If the problem doesn’t improve, Sarsfield said it can become a misdemeanor for child neglect.
Approved absences include:
n illness
n medical appointments
n religious holidays
n court appointments
n funeral of a family member
n personal reasons that have been approved by the school
All other reasons, including a family emergency, are not approved, according to Wei. If a child has a serious medical condition they are also not excused unless the parent brings a letter to the school explaining the matter, and arranges independent study.
In an attempt to get across the importance of their children attending school, Wei went over statistics that linked crime and jail time to truancy.
“Seventy-eight percent of prison inmates had truancy as their first arrest,” he told the crowd.
Throughout the meeting, many parents asked questions about their own personal situations, and Wei and Sarsfield promised to talk with everyone once the general presentation wrapped up.
“This was our first time having a meeting like this, and it’s always interesting because there is a lot of emotion,” Sarsfield said. “We stayed until the very last person was there, and made sure every question was answered.”
Alice Gonzales said it was visible that many parents weren’t pleased with the discussion, by the way they stormed out of the meeting. Personally, she thought the meeting was helpful, but she didn’t agree with one of the unexcused absences.
“I thought about it, and the family emergency thing, it doesn’t seem fair,” she said.
Regardless of what the child misses school for, Chief Probation Officer Deborah Botts said the more school they miss, the less likely they’ll be to continue.
“The more time the child is missing in the lower grades, the less they learn and what you end up with is a child in high school that doesn’t want to be there,” she said.
For more information about attendance and truancy, contact the County Office of Education at 637-5393, or the district attorney’s office at 636-4120.
