Berkeley County to tackle elementary school truancy

Parents of elementary school students in Berkeley County could face severe consequences if their children consistently are absent from school this year, such as a $50 fine or imprisonment on charges of educational neglect.

School district officials will unveil a new attendance intervention plan at tonight's school board meeting in Moncks Corner. The policy marks the start of a new partnership between the school district, the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office and the county Magistrate's Office to enforce a rarely used state law that punishes parents whose children miss school on a regular basis with fines or jail sentences.

Although the state's compulsory school attendance law has been on the books for years, Berkeley will make a serious effort to enforce it this year, Superintendent Chester Floyd said. That measure will come only after repeated attempts to work with parents to improve the child's attendance.

"Everyone is coming together and saying that school attendance is serious business," Floyd said. "We've put teeth into the law. If your child isn't sick, we expect him or her to be in school. If not, there will be consequences."

Floyd said he hopes the cooperation between the various Berkeley County agencies in tackling elementary school truancy can serve as a model for other school districts across the state.

Combating truancy was a major focus of Charleston school officials at the start of the school year, as Charleston schools Superintendent Nancy McGinley, local mayors and law enforcement officials urged parents to make sure their children showed up during the first week of class. A new truancy court will begin in Charleston County this month to address situations where students are chronically absent from school.

Although both districts are focused on attendance, Berkeley's plan was not developed to attack "the big picture" of absences across the district, said Charlie Davis, the district's pupil services director.

"The primary reason we are putting this in place is for those few students in each school whose parents aren't sending them regularly enough to give them a chance of passing," Davis said.

He said about a dozen Berkeley elementary school students have accumulated 30 or 40 unexcused absences a year in recent years. Students in middle and high school with high numbers of absences often are sent to the Solicitor's Office and to the state Department of Juvenile Justice. But there hasn't been a similar strategy to address elementary truancy until now, Davis said.

He said elementary school students who miss so many days of class often aren't at fault. Children have told school officials that they want to come to school, but "my mom or dad won't send me," Davis said. Children who develop poor attendance habits in elementary school often follow the same pattern in middle and high school and are at risk for dropping out of school altogether, he said.

Berkeley's plan gives parents multiple chances to change their child's attendance pattern before they face fines or jail time. The main focus of the plan is to intervene when a student shows a pattern of absences and to work with families to explain the importance of school attendance.

Parents first are asked to come to school and sign an attendance intervention plan if their child tallies multiple unexcused absences. If the child continues to miss school, an attendance officer will call and a social worker might be sent to the child's home to identify any difficult family situations contributing to the absences.

If these attempts fail, the district will turn the family's case over to the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office. Capt. Melissa Blanchard will send the parents a letter asking them to appear before the county's Chief Magistrate, Judge Ava Ayers, who first will intervene to help the family. But if the parents don't show up, a warrant may be issued for their arrest.

Ayers will dedicate one day per month to dealing with school attendance issues and hearing the cases, Blanchard said.

Blanchard, of the Sheriff's Office's community services division, said officials want to take every step necessary to work with parents and discover the problems preventing children from attending school.

"We aren't out to lock up parents and have them spend the night in jail," she said. "Our main goal is getting kids to attend school because the Sheriff's Office believes attendance is a vital component to a child's success in school. But if it comes down to prosecuting these matters, we have a plan to do it."

Reach Mindy B. Hagen at 937-5433 or mhagen@postand courier.com.