City Council Considers Ordinance Targeting Truancy

The Oklahoma City Council is considering a new ordinance aimed at lowering the city's truancy rate. If passed, the ordinance would make it a city offense for children to be truant and could include fining parents for truancy.

Tuesday, February 23rd 2010, 12:00 am

By: News 9


News9.com

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The Oklahoma City Council is considering a new ordinance aimed at lowering the city's truancy rate.

The city council will vote on March 2. If passed, the ordinance would make it a city offense for children to be truant. The ordinance would also give the city the right to temporarily detain truant children.

Around 4,000 students miss school every day.

"The truancy rate is pretty high and has been pretty high in the Oklahoma City Public School System and so that also equates to a fairly high dropout rate. The whole premise here is to keep kids in school," said Oklahoma City Police Chief Bill Citty. "They're less likely to be involved in gangs or any of those types of criminal activity."

It also has the potential to keep kids from dropping out of school. Last year in the Oklahoma City district, almost 4 percent of students quit their education.

"We want to make sure the community understands and parents understand that they need to be in school…And truancy is not an option," said OKC School District Superintendent Karl Springer.

Legal guardians of truant students could face fines and criminal charges. Penalties depend on frequency of convictions.

The fines would range from $50 for a first offense up to $250. Any money collected would go to the city's general fund.

The ordinance also calls for writing citations directly to truant students with unexcused absences between the ages of 12 and 18-years-old. Those students and their parents would then be required to attend municipal court.

State law already allows for parents to be charged criminally in district court if their children miss more than 10 days of school per semester. But, this new city ordinance gets the district and police involved sooner rather than later.

"We really feel this is a great kind of situation with the city and the school district working together. Very few places in the United States have that kind of relationship," said Superintendent Springer.

Stimulus money is being used to expand the truancy program to six police officers. The funding is good for three years the city must pay for it the fourth year.

"We've had a lack of attention on this issue. Most of our parents, most families, both parents work, single parents going to work. I think a lot of the time the parent doesn't even know the child is absent," Superintendent Springer said.

Read the full ordinance and learn more about the ordinance

logo

Get The Daily Update!

Be among the first to get breaking news, weather, and general news updates from News 9 delivered right to your inbox!

More Like This

February 23rd, 2010

March 22nd, 2024

March 14th, 2024

February 9th, 2024

Top Headlines

March 29th, 2024

March 28th, 2024

March 28th, 2024

March 28th, 2024