By law, that's defined as a student who has three or more absences without a valid excuse during the school year or is at least 20 minutes late to school nine or more times during the year. There is generally a low number of habitual truants in most school districts. 12th-graders in the district. However few the number, the consequences for these kids, for their families and for their communities are not to be taken lightly, say those who work with kids in the schools, the legal system and social-welfare organizations. But at the heart of preventing and arresting chronic truancy lies helping families.
Truancy starts in kindergarten.
It really does. Or the child is a little frightened and anxious about school and gets to stay home. Unified, one of two school districts in Orange County, Calif., with truancy centers, and served on the district's Student Attendance Review Board, a state-mandated panel that all school districts must have in place. She says there is a clear downward spiral among habitual truants whose absences from school started at an early age. I saw the profile of the truant.