Act 1223 of 2011 was passed by the Arkansas State Legislature in April to place absolute limits on the number of days students can miss per semester.
It is viewed by legislators as a needed weapon in the battle against truancy, but is also widely acknowledged to be in need of revision to better address the concerns of students with chronic illnesses and of their parents.
Under Act 1223, each Arkansas school district’s attendance policy must define the specific number of absences permitted per semester; allow a student or the student’s parent or guardian to petition the school or district administration for additional absences; and allow exceptions as necessary to satisfy Individualized Education Program (IEP) or 504 plans.
The law states that any petition for additional absences must be made before the student accumulates the maximum number of absences allowed under the policy.
Act 1223 was originally sponsored by Arkansas House District 72 Rep. James McLean of Batesville.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“All of the stakeholders involved in education in Arkansas supported this to keep kids in school,” McLean said. “We probably should have done a better job of letting people know about the changes that were being made to the law, but I think people understand it now.”
McLean said that the bill was introduced with provisions made for students who would need to miss school due to chronic illnesses.
“There are all sorts of provisions in the law for those with medical conditions,” McLean said. “We worked hard to try to provide people with exemptions and safeguards.”
Local legislators were asked to weigh in on the law in the wake of a Dec. 27 article in The Commercial detailing the situation of a Pine Bluff woman whose chronically ill son has run afoul of the Watson Chapel School District’s Act 1223-compliant attendance policy.
Requirement to report accumulating absences to parent
A key provision of the law is a requirement that individual school districts notify parents when their child has reached half of the maximum number of allowed absences.
If a student exceeds the maximum number of allowed absences, Act 1223 requires that the school district notify the prosecuting authority in its jurisdiction, with the student’s parents being subject to a civil penalty through a family in need of services action in circuit court.
“Parents are supposed to get a notification when their child reaches half of the total number of absences they are allowed per semester,” said McLean.
In the earlier Commercial article, Tonya Moore claimed that she was not notified her son was in danger of exceeding the maximum number of allowed absences until he had already reached the allowed total of 10.
District 11 Rep. Efrem Elliott said that he believed that if a case is referred to the courts as a result of a student exceeding the maximum number of allowed absences, local judicial authorities and the relevant school board should do what they can to provide the appropriate assistance to the affected family.
“I’m sure that the school district as well as the court will take heed of some of the issues and work with the parents to make sure the issue is addressed,” Elliott said.
Moore’s son Montel Moore was referred to the juvenile division of the 11th Judicial District-West of the Sixth Division of the Jefferson County Circuit Court on Sept. 29, 2011, for being habitually absent from school.
Other views
District 16 Rep. James Word said that while the law was passed to get a handle on the number of students who habitually miss school, the reality of the law as implemented has caused difficulties for some families of students with health problems.
“I know that when that legislation was introduced in committee and brought to the floor the gist of it was a lot of students were missing school so many days and asking to be passed on to the next grade,” Word said. “The law was trying to say if you miss so many days and don’t have an understanding with your instructor you can’t make it to the next grade.”
“I have had two parents that called me whose children have sickle cell anemia,” Word said. “They were not aware that the law had taken effect. I think we as legislators are probably going to have to have more town hall meetings in place to educate parents about legislation like this that impacts them.”
“The Commercial article gave me second thoughts about whether we need to revisit this legislation,” Word said. “I think we will have to revisit it to see that it does not affect kids with illnesses who are getting their coursework done. For those with chronic illnesses who have their coursework taken care of I think they should be allowed to be passed on to the next class.”
District 10 Rep. Sheilla Lampkin said that the law itself is much needed as a way to combat excessive student absences.
“The law may need to be tweaked but it is a needed law because absentees are a serious problem in the schools,” Lampkin said. “There should be room for exceptions in the case of serious medical conditions, but absenteeism is a problem. Certainly I think it is necessary to have provisions in place for students with chronic illnesses.”
“Overall it is a good law,” Lampkin said. “Absenteeism is really a problem. Some parents don’t know or care if their children are absent from school, so overall this is a needed law.”
District 5 Sen. Stephanie Flowers agreed that the law was passed to aid in statewide student educational achievement.
“There are a required number of hours a student must have to complete a course,” Flowers said. “If they fail to get those they can lose credits. So absenteeism is a problem in this context.”
Flowers did say that once a bill is passed into law and it becomes a component of the state code, things can occur that were not originally anticipated when the bill was first introduced.
“The thing about it is when we create legislation in the area of education and they become acts, the Department of Education then creates rules and regulations that are sometimes not communicated in a timely manner to the school districts and they may not have sufficient time to put it in handbooks. That is a concern I have with the Department of Education in terms of what is communicated and how it is communicated to the district.”
“My thought about students with chronic illnesses is that a special needs and individualized education plan needs to be created for that student,” Flowers said. “The Individuals with Disabilities Act describes certain conditions where students need to set up individual education plans.”
District 23 Sen. Jerry Taylor said that new laws frequently require refinement after they have been passed by the legislature.
“Most any bill that is passed needs some tweaking,” Taylor said. “I’ve never known of a bill that doesn’t need some tweaking. Most always a bill has unintended ramifications. They often do something that nobody ever thought about.”
District 18 Rep. Toni Bradford said that any problems with the law need to be addressed to protect those with unavoidable absences.
“They need to go back and look at it,” Bradford said. “We don’t want to punish those who have to be absent unavoidably. It just needs to be looked at and corrected if there is a problem.”