Texas Students Receive Criminal Records, Fines for Truancy

Texas Students Receive Criminal Records, Fines for Truancy

Truancy, or unauthorized absence from school, has become such a problem in the state of Texas among high school students that officials have made it mandatory for schools to refer these students to the courts after a certain number of unexcused absences. This method, which is used in many other states, of disciplining students for skipping school was put in place to ensure that both the school administration and the students were aware of how serious the state views non-attendance and also to deter students from absenteeism.

Texas now criminalizes twice as many cases of truancy than the other states with criminalized truancy laws combined. This is due to the fact that while Texas has many truant students, there is little to no proper follow up and investigation of the circumstances surrounding a students’ missing school days. After the amount of absences passes three days (within the period of 4 weeks) or ten days (within the period of 6 months), including missing class periods throughout each day, the state mandates that these students must be sent to court for disciplinary action. While the state mandates that students be referred, many school administrations will thoroughly investigate each student before sending the case to court – as this can lead to the students, who are predominately minority and lower class, being charged with fines and receiving a criminal record.

In addition to the improper handling of a case before it is taken to court, many schools will file the case in adult court rather than juvenile court. Conduct In Need of Supervision (CINS) – a juvenile filing system – is largely used in the other states for each case, however, Texas used the Failure to Attend School (FTAS) filing in adult court on over 115,000 cases in 2013; this is as opposed to the 1,000 CINS cases filed that year. Judges in these cases often rule that the students must pay fines for their absences or drop out of school and complete their GED.

While statistics have shown that truancy correlates with low levels of achievement, the sometimes unneeded criminalization leaves with them a criminal record and court history that may scar them more than non-attendance. A record follows them long after they have completed school and must find jobs; a task that is already difficult without the stigma and discrimination against persons with previous charges.