Editor's Note: The video at the top of the story is from our original reporting on a lack of truancy court data.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Austin Independent School District released data showing how often it referred kids to truancy court this school year, revealing a significant decline from the previous year. Austin ISD is the largest school district in Central Texas, and the fight for its truancy data highlights how difficult it can be to understand the scope of Texas’ truancy system without accessible data.
In November, our investigative team discovered that, despite school districts sending thousands of children to court for truancy each year, no state agency is tracking individual district referral trends or student outcomes in court.
The investigation sparked legislation that would create a uniform truancy tracking system across the state, but the bill is stalled in committee and not likely to pass this session.
Our investigative team requested Austin ISD’s truancy data in June 2024. Nine months after our initial request, and after several check-ins, the district’s public information office provided an answer: As of March 1, the district referred 69 children to truancy court in the 2024-25 school year.
The public information office did not share the count from previous school years, as we requested, but in an interview, the district’s new Attendance Director, Carla De La Rosa, explained that the year before, the district referred five times more students to court for truancy – 364.
De La Rosa said the district decreased its truancy referrals and reformed its process after getting feedback last summer from the justices of the peace, who handle their cases.
Individual Austin ISD campuses are responsible for initiating prevention measures when students have accumulated 3 unexcused absences within six months. The campuses are also responsible for filing truant conduct complaints against students, but according to De La Rosa, the campus leaders must initiate prevention measures for the student before referring a student to court.
De La Rosa said this year, the district began requiring campuses to do a “root cause analysis” as a part of its prevention measures. It also instituted a checklist for campuses seeking to refer kids to court, which is screened by her office.
Other judges previously told KXAN the court must dismiss cases in instances where the student is missing school because they are homeless, pregnant or have a disability.
“If they are not providing all that information that says we’ve done everything we possibly can, we’ve engaged in every way possible way, then we are sending it back and we’re not letting them submit for truancy,” De La Rosa said.
12,000+ Texas kids sent to court for missing class, no one tracks what happens next“I think it has been effective," De La Rosa said. "I think we have had less cases turned away from our [Justices of the Peace], and I think it helps us focus and really helps as a reminder to our campuses: have you done everything you can?”
'In the dark' about truancy
Following KXAN’s investigation, State Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, filed legislation to add numerous data points for the Office of Court Administration to collect.
Zaffirini’s measure, Senate Bill 1850, would require the OCA to gather and post a multitude of information showing school districts’ and courts’ numbers of truancy referrals and how they were handled, judgments against students, remedial orders broken down by type, driver’s license suspensions and more. The legislation would also require tracking of contempt of court charges and fines collected.
KXAN profiled the case of Nathaniel Karle, a Georgetown High School student who was sent to court over excessive absences in 2024, disenrolled, and given the option to finish schooling through a G.E.D. program or homeschool.
Nathaniel Karle receives court summons for truant conduct hearing. (Source: Williamson County Constable Office Precinct 3 body camera video)Nathaniel missed dozens of school days, opting to stay home out of fear he could get a visit from his father who had been charged with sexual assault but was not in jail at the time, Nathaniel and his mother told KXAN.
KXAN spoke with several parents of students sent to truancy court in Central Texas. We sat and watched more than a dozen truancy cases handled in justice of the peace and municipal court in Burnet and Travis counties. In most of those cases, KXAN found, the causes of truancy were complicated, personal and often traced back to family and health issues that students couldn’t control.
To get a better understanding of how truancy cases were playing out, KXAN submitted over 200 public information requests to school districts, municipal courts and justice of the peace offices. From the courts, we asked for details of orders – such as how many students were ordered to get finish high school through a G.E.D. program.
From school districts, we sought records on outcomes.
Neither the courts, nor the school districts, nor the Texas Education Agency could provide a clear picture of how the thousands of students sent to truancy court have fared in the system.
Zaffirini’s bill hasn’t budged since being referred to the Senate Criminal Justice Committee in early March, so it is unlikely to pass this legislative session.
There are, however, other bills that have moved further in the legislative process that could affect Texas’ truancy system.
"The consequences of the Legislature not creating a uniform truancy tracking system include our remaining in the dark about how truancy cases are handled across Texas and our continuing to lack the tools to evaluate what's working," Zaffirini said in a statement.
Inside the Investigation: Texas bill could unlock ‘mystery’ of what happens to students in truancy courtDe La Rosa said the data would go a long way for school districts that don’t always know the result of truancy hearings.
“Sometimes the judge is very clear, and we know, and we can document what the [court] order was, but sometimes we don’t have the follow-up information about what is happening,” De La Rosa said.
Bills pending
House Bill 2947, authored by Don McLaughlin, R-Uvalde, would change the rules governing how school districts handle students prior to referring them to truancy court.
Currently, school districts must use truancy prevention measures before referring a student to court. Truancy prevention measures are policies districts use to identify students with absence problems and potentially provide additional services or counseling. The prevention measures also recognize students who don’t have to be sent to court, like those who are pregnant, in foster care, homeless or their household’s primary breadwinner, according to TEA.
McLaughlin’s bill would allow districts to forgo those prevention measures after they’ve been used once on a student.
McLaughlin, the former mayor of Uvalde, told KXAN he authored the bill in part because he saw truancy as a major problem in his hometown’s school district.
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin (Associated Press/Eric Gay)“Not that I want to penalize anybody or make criminals out of anybody, but, if there is no accountability, you don’t get kids to comply,” McLaughlin told KXAN. “Most of these kids' parents probably don’t even know they are not at school.”
His bill also caps fines against parents at $100 for the crime of contributing to nonattendance. Courts would also have to dismiss the charge if a parent can show their student reached 21 years of age, graduated, got an equivalent high school diploma or enlisted in the military.
Lawmakers to examine Texas truancy data collection after KXAN investigationIn 2015, the Texas Legislature overhauled truancy punishments by decriminalizing it and swapping criminal penalties with civil ones.
McLaughlin said Texas “most certainly” needs to track truancy outcomes since those changes.
“There is no statewide tracking on it at all. So, we don’t know the results,” he said. “What we have seen right now with what we put in place in 2015, it is not working.”
To that end, his measure requires school districts to submit attendance reports to TEA showing a variety of campus and grade-level data, such as the number of students who received truancy prevention measures, were referred to court, had over 10 unexcused absences, and the number of parents that school districts filed a complaint against for contributing to nonattendance.
At an early April hearing on McLaughlin’s bill, representatives of three police unions and the Texas Association of School Boards registered in favor of the measure.
Opposing the bill were individuals from the Texas Civil Rights Project, National Association of Social Workers, Texas Association of School Psychologists and Texas Center for Justice and Equity.
“To have this bill take away the opportunity to include more truancy prevention measures after that first attempt feels very harmful for us,” Texas Appleseed’s Education Justice Project Director Andrew Hairston told lawmakers on April 3 during a public hearing.
McLaughlin’s bill passed the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee with a vote of 6-5. As of May 14, the measure was awaiting consideration by the full House.
Senate Bill 570
Senate Bill 570 by Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, would require schools to adopt an attendance policy. Under the bill, schools must inform parents of the policy and the repercussions of truancy. Parents would also be alerted to student absences.
Bettencourt’s legislation would also require schools to hold meetings with students at risk of “becoming truant” and conduct a home visit if a parent fails to attend those meetings.
Additionally, the bill requires schools to create guidelines to identify students needing support and provide services to address their absenteeism.
Many school districts that KXAN spoke with described already having attendance policies that address truancy, utilizing home visits and notification systems for parents and students who are approaching an excessive number of unexcused absences.
The bill does not require the school or truancy courts to collect or report any additional data on the students referred to court for truant conduct.
"[My bill] focused on how to get school back into the business of asking about truancy. Allowing them to literally knock on a door if they need to find out where the parents are, being able to bring the parents into the schools to have a discussion," Bettencourt told KXAN.
Bettencourt’s bill passed the full Senate and was referred to the House Public Education Committee in late April.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( 'In the dark': Bills tracking impact of Texas’ truancy courts on kids not likely to pass )
Also on site :