"Ask the Judge" column continues in La Prensa of SA, 9-9

Ask the Judge: Still more on Truancy
By Judge Steve Walker

With school officially back in session for many school districts the past two weeks, numerous students are still trying to memorize their schedules, remember where their classes are located and attempting to drop some classes and rearrange their class schedule to accommodate sports, and other school related activities.  Meanwhile, I am scheduled to preside over a huge truancy docket tomorrow for cases that were filed at the end of the last school year.

It is certainly not unusual to oversee a large docket at the beginning of the school year. Some of the students I will see will already have logged additional absences than they accrued by the last school year. The habit is hard to break for some students.

As related last in last week’s column, sadly many students will once again fall into the habit of skipping school when they get bored, overwhelmed, forced to work, deal with pregnancy and lack of day care when they have babies, gang participation, family crisis, domestic violence, homelessness and students and families who do not value or see the need for education. It is a vicious cycle.

As the sitting Judge, I reiterate the message that the student drop out rate continues to skyrocket and will continue to escalate unless something changes. It is expected that the legislature will continue proposing more extensive cuts in education in the next session as school districts try to downsize without making major cutbacks and face increased class size that will also hamper the learning process.

It is no wonder that remedies like Home Schooling is becoming very popular with students who are unable to adapt to the radical change. The request for GED programs to receive diplomas is also increasing at a rapid pace.

As stated in past columns, the advantage of a court ordered GED versus a student just signing up for a GED class is that the slow process is expedited in a more timely manner so that students can move to the next stage in their life as they look for gainful employment.

The court order gives preferential treatment to the student and boosts his/her name higher up the list which encourages them to seek the GED.

This coming Thursday I will also be hearing a bunch of show cause hearings from students who did not complete their requirements assessed the last time they came to court.

Those are cases of students who continue to violate their probation by continued failure to attend school or attend remediation of some sort such as counseling. The students on those cases who are not 17 years old will be most likely be ordered to juvenile detention in hand cuffs unless they have some really extenuating circumstances as to why they did not follow the orders of the court.

If I sent them to juvenile detention for failure to comply, they will be assigned a probation officer and immediately sent home with their parent.  Once that happens they are no longer under jurisdiction of the Justice of the Peace Court. They now are under the supervision of the probation officer. The process continues.

We also cite parents for contributing to the failure of their children and we hold them partially responsible for the truancy. Fines can be levied on parents as well. Sometimes that motivates parents to ensure their children attend school. 

Lastly as always, be sure to show up to court on time. It is in everyone’s best interest.

Justice of the Peace, Pct. 2 Steve Walker is a Vietnam Veteran and a former Journalist.