Among the many bills signed into law yesterday by the Governor is Act 138, which amends language in the Public School Code to update provisions related to truancy and chronic absenteeism. As we first pointed out in a 2014 Brief, “… the malady does afflict several western Pennsylvania school districts, especially high schools in Pittsburgh and surrounding communities”. A year after that Brief we pointed out that complied school rankings showed schools at the top had much better attendance at the high school level than those ranked lower.
Based on the House and Senate fiscal notes on the new Act, much of the procedure for a student that is truant (“habitually truant” is defined in the Act as “six or more days of unexcused absences during the school year by a child subject to compulsory attendance under this article” and “truant” is “three or more…”) depends on the age threshold of 15. Charter and cyber-charter schools will also have to report truancy to the state.
