Two Texas school districts stand accused of violating the state’s 2015 law that decriminalized truancy. Advocacy groups came together and filed complaints, urging education officials to investigate and to shore up guidelines so that all schools follow the rules.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a total of 1203 bills following the legislative session this year, and more than half of those laws kicked in September 1 for the entire Lone Star State.
The Failure to Attend School (FTAS), also known as “truancy,” will no longer be a criminal offense in the state of Texas. Governor Greg Abbott signed the historic House Bill 2398 into law on June 18, enacting comprehensive truancy reform. The landmark legislation will go into effect on September 1, according to the Governor’s office.
The Failure to Attend School, or “truancy” would no longer be a criminal offense under a historic bill that passed both chambers of the Texas Legislature on Saturday, May 30.
It was a huge blunder for the Houston Independent School District (ISD), the seventh largest district in the nation and the largest in Texas when an adminstrator’s letter threatened parents that their children would face summer school if they opted out of the annual state-mandated State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) exam. The next day, that threat was downgraded to an editing error.
The Texas Senate moved forward this week in a bipartisan 26-5 vote to decriminalize truancy. The Failure to Attend School (FTAS) or “truancy” is currently a juvenile Class C misdemeanor that carries fines and criminal marks on a student’s record for cutting class. It may soon be a thing of the past as the Texas Senate moved forward to decriminalize it through Senate Bill 106 (SB 106).
DALLAS, Texas — The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Tuesday, March 31, that they opened an investigation of Dallas County Truancy Court and Juvenile District Courts. The investigation is being conducted through its Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division.
The House Committee for Juvenile Justice & Family Issues heard testimony at the state Capitol in Austin on bills that either eased or ended truancy as a juvenile crime in the state of Texas. More than 200 people signed up to speak before the committee to air their opinions on the hotly contested topic on Wednesday, March 11.
Today, Texas is only one of two states that still criminalizes truancy. Texas prosecutes children for truancy at more than double the rate of all forty-nine other states combined. Schoolchildren are prosecuted, punished and fined for cutting classes and missing school. Their futures are often jeopardized by criminal records over their unlawful absenteeism.