‘I can’t teach a kid that’s not there:’ Indiana lawmakers give final approval to absenteeism bill

Senate Bill 282, authored by Sen. Stacey Donato, R-Logansport, seeks to return students back to classrooms by compelling more parental involvement and responsibility.

More than a dozen versions of the legislation were floated throughout the session. The final draft approved by both chambers stipulates that if a student has five unexcused absence days within a 10-week period, then school representatives, teachers and parents of the truant student will have to meet to establish a plan to prevent future absences. 

Public school districts will be required to report habitually truant students — already defined in state law as those who have missed 10 or more days of school without an excuse or parental notification — to the local prosecuting attorney.

Despite concerns from the minority caucus that earlier iterations of the bill would have unfairly pushed children who miss school into the juvenile justice system, Friday’s compromise drew unanimous support in the Senate and passed 92-6 from the House, where two Democrats and four Republicans voted in opposition.

“The bill is almost written backwards. … It’s designed to avoid (sending students to the prosecutor) at all costs,” said bill sponsor Rep. Martin Carbaugh, R-Fort Wayne, referring to the mandatory parent meeting for students at-risk of becoming truant. “The whole focus is going to be, ‘How do we avoid getting letters from the prosecutor?’ But at some point, if the parents still are not getting the children to school, there has to be a consequence, and already in law is educational neglect. We’re just trying to intervene sooner. That’s what this bill does.”

Getting kids back in class

State lawmakers were adamant to move bills in the 2024 session to help improve student literacy and bolster career readiness. That included the passage of Senate Bill 1, which will require schools to hold back third graders who do not pass the statewide IREAD test as part of a push to improve reading.

Legislative leaders said, too, that ensuring Hoosier kids actually show up to class is part of their priority agenda.

The latest Indiana data shows that about 40% of students statewide missed 10 or more school days last year, and nearly one in five were “chronically absent” for at least 18 days.

Student absences have been on the rise since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Indiana and across the nation. Although Indiana’s latest numbers show slight improvements, absentee rates during the 2022-23 school year were still 8% higher than before the pandemic.

Educators around the state say the reasons for absences vary, but family challenges some students face at home, along with hard-to-break tendencies to keep kids home when even mildly unwell — a habit borne out of the pandemic — are key factors. And schools are getting creative to try to combat the growing problem.

Education experts note that being absent as few as three days out of the school year affects test scores and overall academic performance. Getting to school every day also helps kids develop a routine and increases their influential engagement time with adults.

The student demographic groups with the largest gaps in state language arts and math testing since the pandemic are more likely to be chronically absent.

Carbaugh said focusing on the K-6 age group — rather than middle and high school — is a stepping stone for addressing absenteeism.

“When we look at what we’re trying to do this session with getting kids to read by third grade, and all those measures … kids have to be there in order to learn,” he said. “In those younger years, it’s so important. It’s important in later years — I’m certainly not against looking at older ages — but this is a good first step.”

Headed for the governor’s desk

Even so, policymakers struggled to compromise on solutions for absenteeism.

The final draft of Senate Bill 282 is a far deviation from prior versions that would have sent the absenteeism topic to an interim study committee, without any other legislative action. Another provision deleted in the final hours of the session would have mandated habitually truant kids in grades K-6 be prohibited from participating in extracurricular activities.

Under “compulsory education” laws in Indiana, children must regularly attend school from the time they’re seven years old until they turn 18, with some exceptions. 

But unless they’re excused, students who cut class too often could end up under a juvenile court’s supervision. Absence build-ups could also prompt prosecutors to file misdemeanor charges against Hoosier parents, given that they are legally responsible for making sure their children go to school.

Generally, it’s up to local school districts to decide when students’ absences are excused, though existing state law requires schools to excuse absences for certain reasons, including illness, mental or physical incapacity, required court appearances, helping in elections, service as a page for the general assembly, participating in the state fair and up to 120 minutes per week of religious instruction.

It’s currently up to each Indiana county prosecutor to decide how to enforce absence and truancy laws.

Carbaugh said he expects the new absentee measures to apply differently, on a “case-by-case basis,” and that more often, it will be parents — not students — who face repercussions from the prosecutor.

“It depends on the situation. When you think about kindergarten through sixth grade, you’re talking about five- and six-year-olds. It’s not likely that a child is being brought to school — kindergarten, first, second grade — and running out the back door,” Carbaugh said. “That would be, maybe, more common as they get older. So in that case, the focus would be on the student. But in the younger cases, it’s probably going to be on the parent. And ultimately, we give the prosecutor the ability to see who’s the one to focus on in that particular case.”

Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington, agreed that it’s unlikely the bill will force a child to face prosecution for truancy. He pointed to existing state law that already requires school attendance officers to report habitually truant students to the Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS) or intake officers for the juvenile court.

“This bill is just basically saying you have to take that existing statute, that existing law, and you’ve got to plug it into your school attendance policy that you’re creating. This bill is not really creating any new requirements there,” he said. “I think that, even if a prosecutor does kind of go off the rails, you’ve got a judge in there somewhere who’s going to be looking at that, as well.”

Still, Pierce cautioned that lawmakers and prosecutors “shouldn’t overlook” various socioeconomic factors that cause some students to frequently miss school.

“We’re a little bit concerned that we might slide into, ‘Let’s get tough on truancy. Let’s really hammer these people who aren’t getting their kids to school, or kids who aren’t going to school.’ There’s a certain appeal to that,” Pierce said.

“But there are a lot of things, underlying causes,” he continued, giving examples of single parents who work at night and struggle to get their kids to class on time, as well as students who are responsible for getting themselves and their siblings to school without help.

Democratic colleague Rep. Tonya Pfaff, a longtime math teacher from Terre Haute, said she hopes lawmakers expand the absenteeism measure next year to include private schools and older students.