The Answer Sheet - California may jail parents if kids are truant

The Answer Sheet - California may jail parents if kids are truant


Talk about parental responsibility. The California Senate just passed a bill that could send parents to jail for up to a year if their kids -- from kindergarten through eighth grade -- miss too much school.

Senate Bill 1317 is actually a public safety measure, according to State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), because children who don’t attend school regularly or drop out early are more likely to turn to crime.

"Three-quarters of our state inmate population are high school dropouts," Leno was quoted as saying by the Fresno Bee.

According to the Associated Press, parents whose kids miss too much school could be subject to up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine, though judges could put the punishment on hold to give parents a chance to get their kids to class.

The Fresno Bee reported that the bill would apply to parents or guardians of children age 6 or older in kindergarten through eighth grade.

To find someone guilty under the bill, prosecutors would have to prove that the parents failed to reasonably supervise and encourage the student to attend school.

How much school is too much school to miss?

Chronic truancy would be as missing 10 percent or more of the school year without a valid excuse, the Bee reported.

The bill is the brainchild of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for attorney general.

"It's much cheaper to focus to getting that elementary school student to school than it is prosecuting a homicide,” she was quoted as saying by the Bee.

Well, yes, presumably, it is. But putting parents in jail for this? If it is hard for a parent to somehow get their kid to go to school from home, you can imagine how hard it would be from jail. What about single parents? Where would the kids go? Should I keep on asking ridiculous questions about a ridiculous bill?

No, I think not. You can come up with your own.