Photo by Mr. T in DC

Child abuse. Neglect. Those were two of the terms used yesterday by D.C. legislators to describe parents whose children chronically miss school. But a bill that would increase penalties on those very parents has received a chilly reception from Mayor Vince Gray’s administration, which said that jailing parents is no way to ensure that their kids get to school.

The hearing before the D.C. Council’s Committee on Education certainly wasn’t the first to deal with truancy: late last year D.C. coucilmembers addressed what they called the city’s “truancy crisis,” while in 2011 the council established a special committee to propose ways to better ensure that kids go to school.

But now Councilmember David Catania (I-At Large) wants to more put more pressure on parents—last month he introduced a bill that would require the government to intervene if a students racks up 10 unexcused absences in a school year, while mandating that the attorney general prosecute parents whose children miss 20 days of school in a year. Those parents could face fines, up to five days in jail and community service.

His proposal attracted opposition from some students, parents and activists who said that the causes of truancy were complex and should not simply be addressed simply with enhanced prosecution. D.C. Attorney General Irv Nathan, speaking on behalf of Gray, largely agreed, saying that his office already prosecutes the parents of chronic truants and that imposing stricter penalties wouldn’t help resolve the problem.

Neither Catania nor some of his colleagues were particularly convinced by Nathan’s concerns, though, pointing out the dire state of many of the schools that had the worst cases of truancy. According to statistics from D.C. public schools, some of the worst-performing schools also have the highest truancy rates—at Anacostia and Ballou, both low-performing high schools in Ward 8, 45 and 46 percent of students, respectively, missed more than 21 days of school over the 2011-12 school year. This year, Catania said, more than 2,500 students had already missed more than 11 days of school.

A few parents even came out in favor of the bill, including a parental coordinator at Coolidge High School—where 14 percent of students missed more than 21 days of school last year—who said that one of the most effective means he had for getting parents to send their kids to school was threatening to report them to authorities.

Catania’s bill would also deal with the use of suspensions and expulsions as a means of discipline, and would limit the instances in which charter schools could expel students.

Truancy Rates by