Legislation to Eliminate Parental Punishments for Chronically Truant Students Delayed in Assembly

A bill to eliminate jail time, fines, and benefit reductions for the parents of chronically truant students was postponed in an Assembly Appropriations Committee this week, creating the latest speed bump for the bill.

Assembly Bill 461, authored by Assemblyman Patrick Ahrens (D-Sunnyvale), would specifically repeal the requirement under CalWORKs for a child in an assistance unit to attend school and would repeal the prohibition against considering the needs of a child in an assistance unit who is 16 years of age or older who did not attend school, thereby allowing the needs of that child to be considered in computing the monthly family grant. AB 461 would also require the county human services agency to screen the family for family stabilization services and authorize the child, if they are 16 years of age or older, to voluntarily participate in the welfare-to-work program.

In addition, the bill would repeal the criminal offense that makes a parent or guardian of a pupil of 6 years of age or more who is in kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 8, inclusive, and subject to compulsory full-time or continuing education, whose child is a chronic truant, who has failed to reasonably supervise and encourage the pupil’s school attendance, and who has been offered support services to address the pupil’s truancy, guilty of a misdemeanor that is punishable by a fine of up to $2,000, or imprisonment in a county jail for up to one year, or both that fine and imprisonment.

AB 461 would essentially would replace parental fines, jail sentences, and benefit reductions with diversion programs to keep students in school. As state law defines chronically truant students as those missing 10% or more days of school a year, the bill would try to get more students under that number than through parental punishments.

Assemblyman Ahrens wrote the bill because of the difficulties some poorer students have in getting to school, and how struggling parents could then be adversely affected  by the punishments. The rise of chronic absenteeism was also outlined by the Assemblyman, showing how the number of affected students exploded from 755,950 students (12.1%) in the 2018-2019 school year to 1,799,735 (30%) in the post-COVID 2021-2022 school year. In addition, immigrant families were found to be disproportionately affected, especially with many staying home in recent months because of increased ICE and immigration authority activity.

A question of truancy

“These measures are an attack on the poor. It’s an attack on working families who are working two or three jobs, like the families in my district who are trying to get by in the high cost of living in Silicon Valley,” explained Ahrens. “Criminalizing parents for their children’s truancy ignores the root causes of absenteeism and only deepens family hardships.”

“If we’re not prosecuting these cases … then why should we have this in the books? We don’t need the stick if everything else is already working to the benefit of our families,” added End Child Poverty senior policy associate Yesenia Jimenez. “In this time of what feels like is continuous attacks on immigrant families, it is even much more important that we ensure that our parents are not being punished and being misperceived as being neglectful when all they’re doing is trying to protect their children the best way they know how.”

However, many lawmakers have also come out against the bill. They say that the removal of punishments only leads to less engagement and accountability, and would hurt students even more in the long run.

“Public assistance should encourage positive outcomes, like keeping kids in school,” countered Assemblywoman Leticia Castillo (R-Riverside). “Decoupling benefits from school attendance removes a critical incentive for engagement and accountability at home, ultimately putting vulnerable students further behind.”