Senate panel weighs adding chronic-absence framework while keeping truancy as last resort

Summary

Agency of Education witnesses told the Senate Education Committee that adding a chronic-absence measure to law would allow earlier, supportive interventions while retaining truancy — a legal, last-resort tool for repeated unexcused absences. Lawmakers debated whether detailed categories should live in statute or an AOE model policy.

Agency of Education officials told the Senate Education Committee that the attendance bill before them would pair the long-standing legal definition of truancy with a new chronic-absence measure designed to trigger early, nonpunitive interventions.

“For the record, Phil Campbell, Deputy Secretary of Education and Chief of Operations,” said Phil Campbell as he and Jamie Crabel, an assistant attorney general representing the agency, described the bill’s aims. Crabel said truancy already exists in law as a trigger for legal enforcement — currently starting at 20 or more unexcused absences — while chronic absence counts all absences and is measured as 10% or more of the school year elapsed and can be detected early in the term.

The nut graf: Supporters said chronic-absence language would let schools use data systems to flag early patterns of missed days and mount supportive steps such as outreach, phone calls or home visits; they emphasized that those…

Senate panel weighs adding chronic-absence framework while keeping truancy as last resort

Summary

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