Welcome to ELC’s portal for all things attendance and truancy in Pennsylvania. Below you’ll find links to information, parent resources, and publications related to parent and student rights in the truancy process, attendance barriers, self-advocacy tools, and judges and their implementation of truancy laws.
- Addressing Attendance Barriers (‘Truancy’) & School Attendance — FAQs
- School Attendance and Truancy: Understanding the Basics
- A Judge’s Guide to Attendance Barriers and Act 138
- MDJ Truancy Compliance Checklist
- Self-Advocacy Tools: Attendance Barriers Screeners
- Self-Advocacy Tool: Request for Attendance Record Correction
The Basics
Pennsylvania requires that all students attend school from age 6 until age 18 or high school graduation. This age range is called “compulsory school age.” Legal consequences can arise when students fail to attend schools and have “unexcused” rather than “excused” absences. If a student accrues three unexcused absences, they are considered “truant” under the law. If a student has six or more unexcused absences, they are considered “habitually truant.” Schools must take steps to improve attendance for students who are habitually truant, including holding “attendance improvement” conferences to identify and address the causes of a child’s absences.
Schools are legally required to protect students’ rights and work with families to improve school attendance and participation. If such action is taken and attendance does not improve, parents and students age 15 and older can face serious legal consequences, including fines and jail time. A young person may also have their driver’s license revoked. While ELC disagrees with these consequences, the law allows schools and decision-makers to impose such penalties.
It is well documented that punishments imposed following non-attendance are disproportionately applied to Black and Brown students as a result of racial bias. For example, Black, Asian, and Latinx students are more likely to receive a second truancy petition than white youth, and Black youth are twice as likely to be adjudicated dependent for not attending school than their white peers. Families of color are also more likely to encounter barriers getting to school and more likely to come into contact with the child welfare system and face fines, fees, and jail time as a result of disparate enforcement of compulsory school law and penalties. ELC has been involved in cases where responses to non-attendance by students of color are disproportionately harsher – including imposing sanctions of jail time, swifter referrals to dependency court, referrals of youth to residential placement, and heightened police interaction with families.
What’s New?
In April 2024, the Pennsylvania Joint State Government Commission issued its report as required by Act 138. The Truancy Process: The Challenge of Improving Attendance in Pennsylvania Schools identified a number of root-cause barriers to regular school attendance for students, including bullying and harassment, ongoing trauma resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, and systemic racism. The commission specifically acknowledged that truancy is the result of root causes that require more mental health resources and additional school funding for other supports that improve attendance. The report also described the need for additional training of Magistrate District Court judges (MDJs) to understand the underlying causes of truancy and ensure that students and families do not incur fees and fines related to truancy proceedings when they are unable to pay: 33% of MDJs surveyed said they “sometimes” conduct the required ability-to-pay determination and 5% admitted they “never” do.
In February 2024, ELC staff attorney Paige Joki co-authored a new law review article, Reproducing Inequality: Racial Capitalism and the Cost of Public Education, a first-of-its-kind analysis of school-based fines and fees, written with Thalia González, professor of law at University of California College of Law, San Francisco. The study is based on first-hand accounts from ELC clients and reviews of 729 school handbooks in Pennsylvania, which contained 3,846 different ways students could be fined or charged while attending public school. Fines and fees follow children from enrollment to graduation. The report revealed that there are no fine-free schools in Pennsylvania and that schools that serve the most children of color are hotspots for fines and fees. ELC urges all Pennsylvania schools to immediately end the practice of imposing economic costs on families, which undermines students’ ability to access and fully participate in their education.
Check our Attendance Barrier Screening Tools that help families, schools, and Magisterial District Court judges identify and address attendance barriers while upholding the legal rights of students and families. If your family or your child age 15 or older has been invited to a school attendance improvement conference with the school, consider completing the Family Screening Tool so that your school can identify and address attendance barriers.