Coronavirus and Schools: Truancy During the Pandemic
CORONAVIRUS UPDATE
I have a couple of principals asking me about truancy during this time. My understanding after your guidance yesterday during SEAC is that essentially the mandatory school year ended on March 13. In particular we have quite a few students whose parents, when we reach out, tell us to basically “go scratch,” and that's putting it nicely. One principal wanted to call Children and Youth because they are still thinking that this “counts” and that parent is denying them their education. My suggestion was for the case manager to document their attempts to provide support and leave it at that. Am I correct in my interpretation of what you are saying?
We have to preface our advice with an acknowledgment that we do not know whether different guidance on this topic might be forthcoming from the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
Yes, our advice is that you not enforce compulsory attendance in your “continuity of education” programming. Our reasoning is as you suggest: in Act 13 (SB 751), the Pennsylvania General Assembly essentially suspended the 180-day school year for 2020-2021 and, in its place, mandated only that all schools “make a good faith effort to plan to offer continuity of education to students using alternative means.” This loose language by itself cannot be reasonably interpreted to mean the General Assembly intended each day of “good faith effort” to constitute a regular day of instruction for which attendance must be taken and “average daily membership” calculated. Indeed, the guidance of the department until yesterday allowed that “continuity of education” could not involve any new instruction at all, and many districts have interpreted that guidance to allow merely optional “enrichment and review” activities. Even now, the department is not suggesting that “continuity of education” must involve full days of instruction for what would have been the remainder of a full 180-day school term. Moreover, enforcing compulsory attendance—assuming it could be done in an entirely virtual setting in which “instruction” is delivered online in synchronous and asynchronous formats and offline though independent activities and “office hours”—would necessarily ultimately involve pursuing citations and fines before district magistrates whose offices are closed for most business. We suspect that if the General Assembly had intended such an outcome, it would have clearly so stated in requiring “continuity of education” in Act 13.
That does not mean that non-participation—particularly if your “continuity of education” program includes new instruction—should not carry any consequences. If a household has internet access and an available platform for accessing on-line learning, a parent who refuses to have his or her child participate is very arguably engaging in reportable neglect. While we doubt ChildLine reports will lead to much in the current environment, reporting a parent so brazenly refusing to access support his or her child needs is certainly warranted.