ALEX GELI | Staff WriterLancaster County’s chief prosecutor has joined the battle against truancy.
In response to a state law passed in 2016 that cracks down on schools with truant students, District Attorney Craig Stedman’s office, alongside COBYS Family Services and Hempfield and Ephrata Area school districts, conceived its first truancy diversion program.
Hempfield and Ephrata Area participated in a pilot last year. Five school districts — Elizabethtown Area, Ephrata Area, Eastern Lancaster County, Manheim Township and School District of Lancaster — signed up for the program this year.
“We see it as an opportunity or an option for families to avoid having to enter the court system,” said Sarah Fritz, community outreach coordinator for the district attorney’s office.
Fritz said she received an “overwhelming” response from school districts requesting help for truancy issues. That, coupled with the new law, led her to help create the program.
Act 138, which went into effect for the 2017-18 school year, requires schools to notify parents or guardians in writing if a student accumulates three unexcused absences. For a student with six unexcused absences, schools must refer the child either to a school- or community-based attendance improvement program, or to county children and youth.
A citation through magisterial district court is typically the next step.
Last year, 32 Ephrata Area families participated in the pilot. About 19 of those avoided a citation, district spokeswoman Sarah McBee said.
Seventeen Hempfield families also participated. District spokeswoman Shannon Zimmerman said the employee that managed the pilot is on medical leave, so she couldn’t share how many of those families were cited. Districtwide, Hempfield had 25 total citations last year, Zimmerman said.
Families who are referred by their school attend one two-hour session in which they watch a series of informational videos and connect with a COBYS professional, who can refer them to community resources that specialize in, for example, mental health or financial planning.
“Physical illness, mental illness, bullying,” Fritz said. “There’s so many reasons why a kid might be staying home.”
If the student doesn’t start attending school regularly, then the parent — or the student, if he is 15 or older — may be cited by the school district and taken to court, where the school must prove that it’s done everything in its power to get the child to school.
Potential penalties for habitually truant students, according to the new truancy law, include fines of up to $750, three days of jail time and suspension of driving privileges.
