HollisterFreelance.com | District Attorney continues prosecuting parents of truants

District Attorney continues prosecuting parents of truants

Feb 8, 2005
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Hollister - The district attorney is continuing to crack down on student truancy with a program that doesn't just go after children, but their parents as well.

Since the program's inception in 2003, the DA's office has had several cases of child truancy that have gone to court, and "many more" in which parents have been placed on probation or have pleaded guilty, according to Deputy District Attorney Denny Wei.

On Jan. 31, Hollister resident Magdalena Arzola, 41, was found guilty of violating the state education code for not sending her child to school every day. Wei could only say the child was under 10 years old and attended elementary school in the Hollister School District. Arzola was fined $84.

Arzola is just one of the parents in San Benito County to be punished for not sending her kids to school after District Attorney John Sarsfield launched the campaign to crack down on child truancy in 2003. Although Wei couldn't say how many parents had been prosecuted, he did say the program is beginning to have an effect.

"We've been working on this particular case (Arzola) with the Hollister School District and we're trying to hopefully put a dent in the truancy problems that our community faces. This is just an example of our office's prosecution of parents who don't comply with the (education) code," Wei said.

Since about April 2003, the district attorney's office has been teaming up with the Hollister School District to lower student truancy levels, Wei said. Truancy has reached about 7 percent of the district's approximately 6,191 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, according to Connie Childers, an at-risk advocate for the school district.

When children don't attend school, they miss out on their education and the school loses funding, San Benito County Superintendent of Schools Tim Foley has said. Local school districts receives $27 a day per child when they are in school, he said. Foley said the cost of absences added up to about 10 percent of the district's potential revenue.

Combined efforts between the DA's office and the school district to stop truancy include a mediation process, in which parents of truant children are notified of attendance problems by mail and then meet with a member of the DA's office as well as a member of the school's staff. During the mediation process, the parent enters into a truancy contract, in which the parents agrees to make sure his or her kids go to school, Wei said.

"If they fail to comply, we have options," he said.

Options can range from fines, to probation, to jail time.

In November, the DA's office put another Hollister mom on probation when she failed to send her kids to school after signing a truancy contract.

"Our office takes the issue of truancy very seriously and it is important that the parents comply with the education code," Wei said.

Jessica Quandt covers politics for the Free Lance. Reach her at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or at jquandt@freelancenews.com.