What happens if your child is truant

The school may also ask the Family Court to hold you or your child in contempt of court for failure to follow the School Attendance Order. The school must attempt to assist you and your child with following the School Attendance Order before asking the Family Court to hold you or your child in contempt. What happens at a contempt of court hearing? If your child is charged with contempt of court for violating a School Attendance Order, expect the following to happen: An intake session with the DJJ community specialist at the local DJJ county office.

The intake session helps determine the needs of your child. You will receive written notice of the date and time of the intake; A hearing at the Family Court. You should receive written notice stating when you and your child are required to appear at the hearing.

The notice should include the factual allegations that the court will consider. It will tell your child he has a right to be represented by an attorney and the right to have an attorney appointed if you are unable to afford to hire one.

What will happen at a contempt of court hearing? Your child may plead guilty to being in willful violation of the School Attendance Order or your child may plead not guilty and have a trial, after which a judge will determine whether your child is guilty or innocent. If your child pleads guilty or the judge determines your child is guilty after a trial, the judge will determine a punishment. The judge may look at your child's school records, special needs, disabilities, prior misbehavior, or other important facts when deciding the punishment.

Possible punishments include:. Additional Consequences: If your child enters a guilty plea or the judge determines your child is guilty after a trial, this may also affect: College Applications and Scholarships Military Service Employment Opportunities Public Housing. South Carolina allows some juvenile records to be destroyed by court order.

This is called expungement. Expungement erases those records. Expungement may give your child a better chance when applying for college; joining the military; or obtaining a job, loans, or public housing. Truancy records may be expunged.

If your child was only adjudicated delinquent on truancy, by law, the court will grant the expungement. If you child has multiple status offenses, the court still may grant the expungement. How to videos Why join? Although you may not realise it, truancy can not only affect your child's attitude towards school and their ability to learn, it can also affect you as a parent. Read on to find out why. Login or Register to add to your saved resources. Truancy — a growing problem Figures released at the beginning of autumn showed that the overall rate of unauthorised absences stood at record level.

Trial it for FREE today. Stopping truancy Generally, the sweeps act as a deterrent and schools see improvements in attendance during and immediately after. How poor attendance can affect your child Children who fail to attend school regularly will find it difficult to keep up with school work and so may fall behind, leading to feelings of failure Children - especially primary-aged children - miss out on the social side of school life, which can affect their ability to make and keep friends Children who are not in school are most vulnerable and are easily drawn into crime.

Research shows that children who play truant are more likely to offend than those that do not Research also shows that less than 40 percent of pupils in secondary schools with an average of 15 days or more absence get five good GCSEs Poor attendance patterns can also make life difficult later when a child is ready to look for a job. The law recognizes that children, or juveniles, are still developing, and until they reach adult age they must comply with laws that are slightly different than those which apply to adults.

One of the legal duties that the law imposes on a juvenile -- a person under the age of 18 -- is the requirement to attend school every day it is in session. A child who does not attend school on a regular basis is considered truant. Truancy is a juvenile offense that can lead to various consequences for the juvenile as well as his or her parents or legal guardian.

States have different definitions of what it means to be truant. Typically, a student is not considered truant until he or she misses a specified number of school days without a valid excuse.

For example, a state may define truancy as missing three full days of school in a single month, or 10 full days of school in a single year. States may also consider a child truant if the child is late without an excuse. For example, a child who is more than 30 minutes late for any class three or more times in a single month may be deemed truant. Even if a child is habitually absent from school, the child is not truant unless those absences occur without the permission of the child's parent or legal guardian.

For example, a state may establish that four unexcused absences in a month is enough for child to be truant. However, if that child is kept out of school for five days by the child's parents because of a family emergency, those absences do not count in calculating truancy.

When a child is absent from school, it typically falls to the school to first contact the child and the child's parents or guardian to notify them of the absence. As part of this process the school district typically notifies the parents or guardian in writing, by phone, or in person, and may send a truancy officer or school official to the child's home. When a teen is truant the teen's school will often hold a meeting where the child, the child's parents, teachers, and school administrators will discuss the truancy problem and determine what actions they can take to solve it.

If the truancy problem persists, the school will notify the juvenile court of the problem by filing a truancy petition. The petition notifies the court of what has happened and asks it to take action in the case. When a juvenile violates a law, the juvenile is dealt with through the juvenile justice system and not the criminal justice system.

A teen may be sent before a juvenile court after the school's efforts to reduce truancy have failed, though when this happens differs between states. Once before a juvenile judge, the court holds a hearing and can, upon finding the teen truant, impose a range of penalties.

Juvenile courts have much greater discretion when handling cases and can impose a wide range of punishments on both teens and the teen's parent or legal guardian. The kinds of penalties given differ widely between cases and states.