SB 1317 - WAS SIGNED INTO LAW
This bill provides a definition of a chronic truant. Provides that a parent or guardian of a pupil of 6 years of age or more who is in kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 8, inclusive, and who is subject to compulsory full-time education or to compulsory continuation education, whose child is a chronic truant, and has failed to supervise or encourage pupil attendance and has offered language accessible support services, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
So.......What we need to do is get the word out to parents about how to circumvent the issue. Things like putting your child in HHI (Home and Hospital Instruction). Kids with special needs who don't attend school have reason for not attending school that can easily be dealt with through getting a prescription for HHI and having an IEP to make this happen. A doctor must sign off on this and if a child's doctor won't I would simply change doctors. I have never had trouble getting a doctor to sign for HHI - I have a good relationship with my kids' doctors and they know I wouldn't ask for this without good reason, so it's always good to start with a good relationship with our kids' doctors. I know it isn't always as easy for people who are new to an area or if you are in an HMO but it can be done. The only time I had a doctor not sign for HHI was when he suggested it but felt my daughter's regular pediatrician should write the prescription because this doctor was at an urgent care and didn't have access to her records should any questions arise later. The kids I know with special needs who don't attend school miss due to frequent illness (compromised immune system? or congenital issues that cause them to be sick a lot, or frequent surgeries) or due to school phobia (a legitimate reason for HHI) or because the school environment exacerbates symptoms (like florescent lights that trigger seizures). I'm pretty sure there are other reasons, but this is a sample of ideas to help parents avoid the kind of mess this idiotic type of legislation can create.
A friend of mine went to an IEP with a family whose child went to a specialized program all year and then to school after. "Dad requested records and daughter had recorded eleven truancies. The school said 'oh our system isn't designed to take into account when a child is here partial days so that's why it recorded this way'. Then they said are you sure she wasn't absent at least x amount of days and tried to say most of these were legitimate. My friend said "Just imagine how a parent like this can be manipulated now that this law is passed. Sign this IEP or we will record those as truancies. Or they can imply it." And I believe that some unscrupulous school personnel would do this!
The good news was the district personnel admitted they did not have a way to handle this individualized situation and this meeting was recorded - I know the parent records all of their meetings as I do too. It's vital for just this sort of thing you might not even realize is going to come up! Their attempts to blame the deficiencies later would carry no weight in court because they had already admitted that their system was not able to properly keep track of absences in this particular situation. I would think though that the district might want to make their system capable of keeping track since they were not paid for the days they mistakenly recorded this child as absent, yet they were paying for the outside services regardless.
We had a similar situation with my daughter because she went to speech therapy in the morning and then went into school late every day, but we were protected because my daughter has behavior issues and the teacher and aide filled out a behavior sheet about her every day that she went to school. They would send it home in the afternoon or if a short day would hand me the behavior sheet the next day when I dropped her off. I had proof that she was there. Maybe the parents should set up some similar sort of safeguard if they know ahead of time that this could become an issue. Of course we almost never expect these things to be potential issues so we have to get the news out to parents that they should set up a plan ahead of time so they don't run into problems down the road.
I'm sure there are other ways around this, I don't know them because I can't think of every possible scenario where this could be a problem, but if you have creative ways to deal with this new law please post a comment.
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