Editor’s note: The video at the top of the story is our original reports on the lack of courtesy of the school’s absenteeism.
ASAN (KXAN) – The Austin Independent School area has released data showing the number of times the children referred to the court of absenteeism this year, and revealed a significant decrease from the previous year. Austin ISD is the largest school area in central Texas, and the struggle for absenteeism sheds light on the difficulty of understanding the scope of the Texas change system without accessing data access.
In November, our investigation team discovered that although the educational areas that send thousands of children to the court for absenteeism every year, any government agency tracks the trends of referring individual boycott or students ’results in the court.
The investigation sparked legislation that creates a unified system for tracking tracking throughout the state, but the draft law is suspended in the committee and this session is not likely to pass.
Our investigation team asked the ISD absenteeism data in June 2024. Nine months after our initial request, and after many additional checks, the General Information Office in the province presented an answer: starting March 1, the province referred 69 children to the school court in the academic year 2024-25.
The General Information Office did not participate in the counting of previous school years, as we asked, but in an interview, the new director of the attendees, Carla de la Rosa, explained that in the previous year, he referred the province five times to the court to misleading – 364.
De La Rosa said that the boycott was reduced to absenteeism and repairing its operation after obtaining the reactions last summer from peace judges, who deal with their cases.
The campus of the individual universities of ISD is responsible for the start of prevention measures when students have accumulated 3 unnamed absence within six months. The university campus also takes responsibility for submitting complaints of underdeveloped behavior against students, but according to De La Rosa, university campus leaders must start prevention measures to the student before referring the student to the court.
De La Rosa said this year, the boycott began to demand universities to “analyze the radical cause” as part of its preventive measures. It also created a reference list for the university campus that seeks to refer the children to the court, which is displayed by its office.
Other judges were told by KXan that the court must reject cases in cases that the student lacks the school because they are homeless or pregnant or suffer from a disability.
De La Rosa said: “If they do not provide all this information that we say we did everything in our power, then we have participated in every possible way, so we will send it back and we do not allow them to apply to absent from absenteeism from being absent from that.”
“I think it was effective,” said de la Rosa. “I think we have less cases that have moved away from us [Justices of the Peace]And I think it helps us focus and really helps as a reminder to our deprived individuals: Did you do everything you can? “
“In the dark” about the absence of school
After KXAN, Senator Judith Zaferini, D-Larero, presented legislation to add many data points to the court management office to collect them.
Zaferini scale, Senate Bill 1850OCA will require the collection and publishing of many information that shows the number of educational areas and courts from absenteeism from absenteeism from absenteeism from that, how they were addressed, judgments against students, and therapeutic orders that were divided by the type, and suspending the driver’s license and more. The legislation will also require trampling of the accusation of the court and the collected fines.
KXAN appointed the Nathaniel Karl case, a student at Georgetown Secondary School that was sent to the court due to the excessive absence in 2024, and he met, and he looked at the option of completion of education through the GED or HO programMeschool.
Nathaniel missed dozens of school days, and chose to stay at home for fear that he could visit his father, accused of sexual assault, but he was not in prison at that time, Nathaniel and his mother as Kakan said.
Kxan spoke with many parents of students who were sent to the school court in central Texas. We sat and saw more than ten cases to be absent from the absenteeism of the Judge of the Peace Court and the municipality in Burnet and Tarvis provinces. In most of these cases, KXAN found that the reasons for absenteeism from absenteeism were complex and personal and often tracked to family and health issues that students cannot control.
For a better understanding of how to operate the cases of absenteeism from the school, KXAN has submitted more than 200 general information requests to educational areas, municipal courts and justice in peace offices. From the courts, we requested the details of requests – such as the number of students who were requested to obtain high school through the GED program.
From educational areas, we sought records about results.
The courts, the educational areas, nor the Texas Education Agency can provide a clear picture of how thousands of students perform the court of absenteeism.
The Zaferini draft law has not been joking since its referral to the Criminal Justice Committee in the Senate in early March, so it is not likely to pass this legislative session.
However, there are other draft laws that have moved in the legislative process that can affect the Texas change system.
“The consequences of the legislative body that do not create a unified tracking system for our tracking in the dark on how to deal with cases of absenteeism throughout Texas and continue the absence of tools to assess what works,” Zaferini said in a statement.
De la Rosa said that the data will come a long way for educational areas that are not always known as a result of the sessions of absenteeism.
“Sometimes the judge is very clear, we know, and we can document what [court] The system was, but sometimes we have no follow -up information about what is happening. “
Poor bills
House Law 2947And that you compose without McLeulin, R-UVALDE, would change the rules that govern how educational areas deal with students before referring them to the court of absenteeism.
Currently, educational areas must use measures to prevent absenteeism from absenteeism from absenteeism from absenteeism from absenteeism from absenteeism from absenteeism from absenteeism from absenteeism from absenteeism from absenteeism from absenteeism. Tables to prevent absenteeism from school They are the policies that the regions use to identify students with absence problems and possibly provide additional services or consultations. Prevention measures are also recognized by students who do not have to send to court, such as those pregnant women, in custody, homeless or the primary family in their families, according to tea.
The mclaghlin bill will allow the areas to give up these preventive measures after using them once on the student.
McLeulin, former Evald’s mayor, told KXAN that he had partially authored the draft law because he saw that there was a big problem in the area of his hometown school.
“I don’t want to punish anyone or make criminals from anyone, but if there is no accountability, you will not get children to comply.” “Most parents may not know these children that they are not at school.”
Its bill also makes fines against parents at a price of $ 100 to contribute to not attending. The courts will also have to refuse the charge if one of the parents can show that his student is up to 21 years, graduated, or obtained a equivalent high school diploma or has been recruited in the army.
In 2015, the Legislative Authority of Texas fixed changing sanctions by canceling its criminalization and switching criminal penalties with civil contracts.
McLeulin said that Texas “certainly” needs to track the results of absenteeism from the school since these changes.
“There is no tracking at the state level at all. So, we don’t know the results,” he said. “What we have seen now with what we put in 2015, it doesn’t work.”
In order to achieve this purpose, it requires its management of educational provinces to submit reports of attendance to tea that display a variety of data on the campus and attributes, such as the number of students who received measures to prevent absenteeism, was referred to the court, and they have more than 10 unexploited absence, and the number of parents submitted by the educational areas a complaint against the contribution to the lack of occurrence.
At a hearing in early April on the McLeulin Bill, representatives of three police unions and Texas Association were registered for school councils in favor of the procedure.
The opposition of the draft law was individual from the civil rights draft in Texas, the National Association of Social Specialists, the Texas Association of Psychologists in Schools and the Texas Center for Justice and Equity.
Andrew Hreston, director of the Texas Educational Justice Project, said, “This draft law leaves the opportunity to include more measures to prevent absenteeism there after that first attempt is very harmful to us.”
The McLulin Bill pass the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee in the House of Representatives with a vote 6-5. As of May 14, the procedure was waiting to look at the full house.
Senate Bill 570
Senate Bill 570 By Senator Paul Betinkurt, R-Houston, schools will be required to adopt attendance policy. Under the draft law, schools must inform parents of politics and the implications of absenteeism from the school. Parents will also be alerted to the student’s absence.
Bettencourt’s legislation will also require schools to hold meetings with students at risk of “becoming variable” and conducting a home visit if one of the parents fails to attend these meetings.
In addition, the draft law requires schools to create instructions to identify students who need support and provide services to address absenteeism.
Many educational areas in which KXan spoke with the study policies that are already dealt with absent from the absenteeism, and the use of home visits systems and notification systems for parents and students approaching an excessive number of uninterlabable absence.
The draft law does not require the school or school courts to collect or report any additional data about students referred to the court of follow -up.
“[My bill] Focus on how to return the school to the business to ask about the absence of the school. “Let them literally go out at the door if they need to know where the parents are, and the ability to bring parents to schools to conduct a discussion,” Bitzor told KXan.
The Bettencourt Bill passed the full Senate and was referred to the General Education Committee in the House of Representatives in late April.