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From today's San Antonio Express-News
By John MacCormack - Express-News
MASON — Last month, fourth-grader Mikaela Crocker received yet another award for perfect attendance as well as recognition for again getting straight A's. Her second-grade sister Kylie also made the high honor roll.
But the warm academic glow didn't last long. A few weeks later, after returning from an extended Spring Break, both girls and their parents were taken to court and charged with truancy. The offense: Missing three days of school on a family vacation.
“It seems crazy to have a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old charged with a Class C misdemeanor for going to see their grandmother and grandfather for three days,” said their mother, Ashley Crocker, who said she was blindsided by the citations.
Ashley Crocker said she sent notes to both girls' teachers before taking the March vacation, talked to a school attendance officer by telephone while the girls were gone, and then sent an additional note to school after they returned.
According to state law, a school district has the discretion of filing truancy charges if a student has three unexcused absences within a four-week period. But few districts take such an extreme measure, especially for a first offense, without exhausting other remedies.
Mason, a pastoral Hill Country community about 120 miles northwest of San Antonio, has a strong German heritage, a charming, well-preserved town square and occasional backyard goats. School is taken very seriously.
The superintendent's Web page boasts that the district ranks first among 46 schools in the region with a 95 percent passing percentage. In 2007, according to state records, the district of about 600 students had 97 percent attendance and a dropout rate of less than 1 percent.
While declining to discuss the Crocker case, Superintendent Matt Underwood and Principal Pam Kruse said the district applies its zero tolerance policy toward unexcused absences equally to all. Each year, about five truancy cases are filed, they said.
Time away from class to participate in sporting events and stock shows is considered extracurricular, and is therefore excused, but family vacations are not, they said.
“If you start trying to decide whose vacation is important and whose isn't, it's a very slippery slope,” Underwood said.
One issue apparently in dispute in the Crocker case is the adequacy of the notice.
“It's a whole lot easier to take care of things beforehand than to clean up the mess afterward,” said Kruse, implying that notice was not received.
But unlike other parents here who decided not to fight truancy charges, the Crockers pleaded not guilty and hired a lawyer.
“I don't want my girls to have a criminal record at 7 and 9. But more than anything, it's a matter of principle,” said Chad Crocker, who manages a local feed lot.
Prosecuting the case will fall to County Attorney Shain Chapman, whose wife is on the school board and whose kids are in elementary school.
“I've never had to go to trial on one of these. Ninety-nine percent of them plead no contest or guilty, and the charges are ultimately dismissed,” he said of other truancy cases.
Chapman, who acknowledged taking his own kids out of school for a two-day vacation to Philadelphia last year, defended the district's strict policy.
“It's not that the district is operating as the Gestapo here. They're trying to get kids back in school and make sure they're doing well,” he said.
But some local parents with school-age children who are friends of the Crockers are not convinced the policy is fair or realistic.
“People are asking, why are we doing this? I could see it if you had a child who was notoriously not doing well and the parents were not pulling their weight. But this is crazy. It went straight to prosecution,” said Julie Gillespie, who has children in the fifth and second grades.
Two years ago, she said, she took her kids on a five-day vacation to Walt Disney World in Florida, after informing the district of her plans, and no truancy charges resulted.
Mason takes a different approach from some area school districts.
Melissa Ramos supervises a staff of 14 people who handle truancy and dropout problems for San Antonio Independent School District, an urban district of more than 50,000 students with serious attendance problems.
Last year, she said, the district filed truancy cases on about 3,000 students, but only after all other measures failed.
“We send the parents a warning notice. We make home visits. We try to have conferences at school. We look at the whole situation,” she said, noting court is the last resort.
In Comfort, a smaller, rural district similar to Mason, truancy cases are filed only on kids who are “attempting to drop out,” according to high school Principal J.D. Matthew.
“We try to use common sense. We file if a kid is trying to quit school. If the kid is still in school, we deal with it as a disciplinary infraction,” he said.
By John MacCormack - Express-News
MASON — Last month, fourth-grader Mikaela Crocker received yet another award for perfect attendance as well as recognition for again getting straight A's. Her second-grade sister Kylie also made the high honor roll.
But the warm academic glow didn't last long. A few weeks later, after returning from an extended Spring Break, both girls and their parents were taken to court and charged with truancy. The offense: Missing three days of school on a family vacation.
“It seems crazy to have a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old charged with a Class C misdemeanor for going to see their grandmother and grandfather for three days,” said their mother, Ashley Crocker, who said she was blindsided by the citations.
Ashley Crocker said she sent notes to both girls' teachers before taking the March vacation, talked to a school attendance officer by telephone while the girls were gone, and then sent an additional note to school after they returned.
According to state law, a school district has the discretion of filing truancy charges if a student has three unexcused absences within a four-week period. But few districts take such an extreme measure, especially for a first offense, without exhausting other remedies.
Mason, a pastoral Hill Country community about 120 miles northwest of San Antonio, has a strong German heritage, a charming, well-preserved town square and occasional backyard goats. School is taken very seriously.
The superintendent's Web page boasts that the district ranks first among 46 schools in the region with a 95 percent passing percentage. In 2007, according to state records, the district of about 600 students had 97 percent attendance and a dropout rate of less than 1 percent.
While declining to discuss the Crocker case, Superintendent Matt Underwood and Principal Pam Kruse said the district applies its zero tolerance policy toward unexcused absences equally to all. Each year, about five truancy cases are filed, they said.
Time away from class to participate in sporting events and stock shows is considered extracurricular, and is therefore excused, but family vacations are not, they said.
“If you start trying to decide whose vacation is important and whose isn't, it's a very slippery slope,” Underwood said.
One issue apparently in dispute in the Crocker case is the adequacy of the notice.
“It's a whole lot easier to take care of things beforehand than to clean up the mess afterward,” said Kruse, implying that notice was not received.
But unlike other parents here who decided not to fight truancy charges, the Crockers pleaded not guilty and hired a lawyer.
“I don't want my girls to have a criminal record at 7 and 9. But more than anything, it's a matter of principle,” said Chad Crocker, who manages a local feed lot.
Prosecuting the case will fall to County Attorney Shain Chapman, whose wife is on the school board and whose kids are in elementary school.
“I've never had to go to trial on one of these. Ninety-nine percent of them plead no contest or guilty, and the charges are ultimately dismissed,” he said of other truancy cases.
Chapman, who acknowledged taking his own kids out of school for a two-day vacation to Philadelphia last year, defended the district's strict policy.
“It's not that the district is operating as the Gestapo here. They're trying to get kids back in school and make sure they're doing well,” he said.
But some local parents with school-age children who are friends of the Crockers are not convinced the policy is fair or realistic.
“People are asking, why are we doing this? I could see it if you had a child who was notoriously not doing well and the parents were not pulling their weight. But this is crazy. It went straight to prosecution,” said Julie Gillespie, who has children in the fifth and second grades.
Two years ago, she said, she took her kids on a five-day vacation to Walt Disney World in Florida, after informing the district of her plans, and no truancy charges resulted.
Mason takes a different approach from some area school districts.
Melissa Ramos supervises a staff of 14 people who handle truancy and dropout problems for San Antonio Independent School District, an urban district of more than 50,000 students with serious attendance problems.
Last year, she said, the district filed truancy cases on about 3,000 students, but only after all other measures failed.
“We send the parents a warning notice. We make home visits. We try to have conferences at school. We look at the whole situation,” she said, noting court is the last resort.
In Comfort, a smaller, rural district similar to Mason, truancy cases are filed only on kids who are “attempting to drop out,” according to high school Principal J.D. Matthew.
“We try to use common sense. We file if a kid is trying to quit school. If the kid is still in school, we deal with it as a disciplinary infraction,” he said.
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