By Leslie Collins
Northeast News
April 25, 2012

For nearly two months, the proposed city ordinance to combat truancy has been held in committee and was held once again April 18.

The ordinance, which builds upon the Missouri Compulsory Attendance Law by adding penalties for parents and guardians who fail to keep their children in school, has continued to draw opposition from homeschooling families and the committee itself.

As additional committee substitutes were introduced, the misunderstandings and misinformation continued to mount.

Despite the elimination of the daytime curfew from the ordinance, both homeschooling families and members of the city’s Public Safety and Emergency Services Committee continued to refer to the daytime curfew. Opponents argued the ordinance would squash a homeschooler’s freedom and right to be out in a public place during the daytime.

One homeschooled youngster who testified before the Public Safety committee April 18, cited the 4th Amendment in the United States Constitution.

“Why do you think I do not deserve the same constitutional protections that everyone else enjoys?” the boy asked.

Homeschooling parents testified they would reconsider vacationing in Kansas City if the city ordinance passed and said they worried they could no longer send their children to the library or on field trips unsupervised by an adult. The word “freedom” continued to slip into the debate and Candace Roberts of the Region 3 Families for Home Education said, “I hear no guarantee that homeschooled students or private schooled students will not be intimidated (by police).”

She further argued that the City of Kansas City should use the law already on the books – the Missouri Compulsory Attendance Law.

That law, which is listed on the Families for Home Education website, clearly states that police officers may act as “ex officio school attendance officers.”

It further states that an attendance officer may “visit and enter any mine, office, factory, workshop, business house, place of amusement, or other place in which children are employed or engaged in any kind of service, or any place or building in which children loiter or idle during school hours; may require a properly attested certificate of the attendance of any child at school; may arrest, without warrant, any truant, or nonattendants or other juvenile disorderly persons.”

If there’s doubt about an individual’s age, an officer currently has the right to request an attested birth certificate or an affidavit stating the individual’s age, date of birth and other information.

In addition, the attendance law requires that parents and guardians ensure their children, between ages seven and the compulsory attendance age for the district (usually age 17), regularly attend school. Parents and guardians found guilty of violating the state law may be charged with a Class C misdemeanor.

“As we have said many times, we’re not enforcing anything differently. We’re not providing more powers to the police department. All we’re doing is adding a penalty provision that is associated primarily with the truancy sweep,” City Council member and ordinance sponsor Scott Wagner told Northeast News. “The enforcement has always been there, the penalties have not.”

Proposed penalty options for parents and guardians of students found truant include a fine not to exceed $100, community service or participating in an organized parenting curfew or counseling program to address the minor’s attendance.

The goal is to hold parents and guardians accountable for their children and to provide resources, like counseling, to help students stay in school, Wagner said.

The proposed city ordinance also holds guardians and parents responsible for allowing a minor to be in a public place unaccompanied by an adult when school is in session. However, there are a number of exceptions, like a minor traveling to and from work, when a minor has written documentation from school authorities that he or she is excused from school, when a minor is traveling to or from an activity involving the exercise of First Amendment Rights of Free Speech, Freedom of Assembly, or Free Exercise of Religion, when the minor is on lunch break, and a number of other exceptions.

“In my view, if you have no penalty for breaking the law, then people will just keep breaking the law,” Wagner said. “I don’t understand the issue that the committee has had and why it has allowed this (ordinance) to sit. Last August, this council passed a night time curfew with stiffer penalties and there was no problem passing that and I believe a majority of these committee members voted for that.”

Wagner also stressed that the Kansas City Police Department, Kansas City Public Schools and Hickman Mills School District asked him to propose the ordinance.

However, following testimonies from area school districts, the Kansas City Police Department, Kansas City Mayor Sly James, neighborhood leaders, the KCPD Police Board of Commissioners and the Kansas City, Missouri Commission on Violent Crime, who all support the ordinance, the committee continued to raise the same concerns.

During four separate public meetings, a variety of Kansas City Public Schools’ officials, including the superintendent, outlined the district’s initiatives to engage parents more, improve attendance and truancy rates, and provide social services for students.

“We are monitoring attendance like never before,” KCPS Chief Communications and Community Engagement Officer Eileen Houston-Stewart testified April 18. “We feel like the daytime truancy ordinance is one of the many tools we’ll use to increase attendance rates, graduation rates and decrease the number of students dropping out.”

Despite the list of detailed initiatives, however, Committee member Michael Brooks said, “To put this in place right now is being more punitive and being reactive to the problem rather than being proactive. The district needs to put something in place to keep kids off the street in the first place. It would be easier for me to support this if that was already happening.”

During a previous meeting, KCPD South Patrol Division Commander Maj. Karl Oakman voiced his support for the ordinance.

“Approximately 30 percent of our daytime burglaries (in South Patrol) involve children that should be in school,” Oakman said.

“Not only are truants committing crimes, they’re also victims of crimes,” said Stacey Daniels, executive director of Jackson County COMBAT (Community Backed Anti-Drug Tax) and chair of the Commission on Violent Crime. “We do need a plan.”

Not only does truancy affect learning, it also increases the number of high school dropouts and “affects our long-term economic possibilities,” she said.

“We know that students who don’t end up in school do end up as dropouts and then they end up in the (court) system,” she continued. “We’re looking at this (ordinance) as a way to reduce crimes. Several of the homicides that happen to teens happen when they should have been in school.”

Despite tight school budgets, Committee member John Sharp argued that school districts must continue to do more to combat truancy and should reinstate programs like truancy officers and truancy court.

For Committee member Jermaine Reed, police enforcement was the hot issue.

“Will there be sirens? Will they (police officers) intimidate the kids? Do they currently do that where they throw them on the ground and put them in handcuffs?” Reed asked.

Committee member Scott Taylor defended the ordinance by saying, “We’ve heard this issue more than any other issue now. We’ve heard from public schools. We’ve heard from the police department. This has been a request of us. It will be a small tool that will help our school districts that are calling out for help. It’s something the city can do.”

Reed moved to place the ordinance on the semi-annual docket and Sharp seconded. Following the motion, Taylor accused the committee of attempting to kill the ordinance by placing it on the semi-annual docket, which most likely wouldn’t be heard again until July. All except Taylor voted to move the ordinance to the semi-annual docket.

Since the ordinance has been held in committee for more than 20 days, Wagner has enacted Rule 28 which allows him to bypass the committee and introduce the ordinance to the full council. The City Council will hear the ordinance this week and is expected to vote on it May 3. This week, Wagner plans to meet with stakeholders, including homeschoolers, to address concerns and “come to a compromise.”

“I think we have to listen to what the schools are asking for,” Wagner said. “They’re asking for this now. This is one small thing the city can do to help the public education of our city.”