D.A. Steps Up Pressure on Parents of Truants

When his 7-year-old daughter came home from her Long Beach elementary school with a letter from the district attorney’s office, Joel Weinberg hit the roof.

The form letter threatened criminal prosecution, telling Weinberg that his daughter Summer had a poor attendance record, reminding him that “attendance is mandatory” in California, and urging him to attend a meeting today at Patrick Henry Elementary School “to prevent possible court action.”

An angry Weinberg said his children may have missed school, but only because they were sick. “Why go after normal law-abiding people like me? Let them chase the people who are committing crime in the streets,” said Weinberg, a single father.

As he was to learn, Weinberg got caught up in the district attorney’s Abolish Chronic Truancy program, an effort to impress upon parents the need for regular attendance.

Last year, the district attorney’s office, which administers the program in 118 schools in Los Angeles County, sent similar warnings to roughly 9,000 parents. The letters are meant to be “a hammer” designed to get parents’ attention. And they have worked.

Attendance immediately improved in 70% to 80% of the cases, said Deputy Dist. Atty. David Lopez. Follow-up contacts with parents whose children’s attendance remained poor eventually resulted in improvement in almost all of the cases, Lopez said.

This year, prosecutors appear to be more zealous. Letters will be sent to about 14,000 homes. Although only a handful of parents have been prosecuted over the years, charges have been filed in eight cases this year.

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“We consider it a failure for us to have to prosecute, because that means the child is not in school,” Lopez said. “Prosecution is the last thing we want to do.”

Although there are occasional complaints, parents generally support the program, say Long Beach school officials.

“It has done wonders at this school to improve attendance,” said Alfredo G. Alarcon, principal of Thomas A. Edison Elementary School on Long Beach’s westside. Alarcon said his school, which once had an absenteeism problem, now has a 98% attendance rate.

If a child’s attendance picks up after the warning letters are sent, “the parents never hear from us again,” Lopez said. If the problem continues, there are several further steps, including a home visit by school officials, before the matter becomes a criminal case.

Parents can be punished for “contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” with penalties of up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

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Weinberg said he has talked with the school principal and believes that he has resolved the problem. But he is not happy.

“I’m not disputing the absences, nor am I making an apology for them,” said Weinberg, a freelance writer and film producer. He calls the district attorney’s program “unreasonable,” saying parents “should not be threatened with criminalization.”

Weinberg said he agrees that there is a need for the program, but that the district should attempt remedial action before parents are “put into the legal system.”

Weinberg’s youngest daughter, Skye, is physically handicapped. During the last school year, when she was in kindergarten, she had 40 absences. That’s the chief reason the letter was sent. This year, Skye and her sister, Summer, who is in second grade, had five absences during September and October. Their brother, Soleil, 11, attends another school, and absenteeism hasn’t been a problem, Weinberg said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. John Carlos Tosello, who signed the letter sent to Weinberg and who will meet today with about 120 parents of Patrick Henry Elementary School pupils, said the idea is to stop excessive absenteeism before it becomes a more serious problem.

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“This is a parental responsibility program,” Tosello said. “Here in Long Beach, the health department has determined that poor attendance in school is correlated with teenage pregnancy, with police involvement, with possible gang involvement. There are many unforeseen negative consequences.”

Tosello and school officials say they understand that serious health problems may contribute to absenteeism. Even so, they say they want to talk to parents to establish a program to improve attendance, whether it is visiting a school nurse more frequently or being lined up with free or reduced-cost health care.

The bottom line is they want the children in school.

“No one would have a problem putting a parent in jail if they physically abused their child--say, broke their arm on purpose,” said Lopez, who is Tosello’s counterpart for schools in South Gate, Huntington Park, Pomona and Baldwin Park. “But a parent, by not sending a child to school, is creating a broken mind. A broken arm may heal, but a broken mind may never heal.”