NPR – Claudio Sanchez
“As long as there have been schools and classes, there have been students who don’t show up. And educators scratching their heads over what to do about it. In most states, missing a lot of school means a trip to the principal’s office. In Texas, parents and students are more likely to end up in front of a judge. Truancy there is treated as a criminal offense, a class C misdemeanor. In 2013, school districts in the state filed 115,000 truancy cases. The problem is so big, state lawmakers and the U.S. Justice Department are investigating whether prosecuting children and teenagers in adult criminal courts is doing more harm than good. Zaid Yassin’s case is just one example of the complexity of chronic school absence and the challenges of dealing with it through the criminal justice system. Yassin has been summoned by the Travis County Court in Austin because his 5-year-old daughter, Fatima, has missed 23 days of school, all unexcused absences. Yassin says his little girl gets sick a lot.”(more)