The Lexington Herald- Leader ran an article on September 25, 2017 about the number of truant students, particularly the number of habitually truant students, in the Commonwealth. The main thrust of the article was that the Commonwealth has a very high number of truant students, especially as compared to other states.
This should surprise exactly no one. Ever since the legislature decided in its infinite wisdom that the key to getting a handle on KY's previous drop- out crisis was to simply make it so that students can't drop out until they turn 18, an explosion in the number of truancy cases was inevitable.
You see, just because you pass a law doesn't mean that the law is going to be followed. Students who were already prone to dropping out (legally) before their 18th birthday still drop out. They just walk away from school and the only difference is that there is now pressure on the system to prosecute them as truants. They didn't stop "dropouts." They just created more criminals- excuse me- juvenile offenders.
That system is entirely broken, by the way. A couple of years ago I was sentenced to serve on one of the myriad "do gooder" boards that our society creates from time to time in the interest of solving some intractable problem or other. The focus of this particular waste of time was truancy and runaway kids.
Shortly after school resumed following the Christmas/ Holiday/ Winter Solstice break of that particular year, a representative on the board from the county attorney's office told us that the juvenile court docket for hearing truancy cases was full until June. Essentially, halfway into the school year there was no point in sending any new truancy cases through the juvenile justice system anymore because the offenders wouldn't be getting a hearing until after school had ended for the year.
I managed to escape that particular board, so I don't have any personal knowledge of the situation today. I can't imagine that it's any better.
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