The Centralia City Council has finally passed a truancy ordinance.
Police Chief Greg Dodson has been pushing the ordinance as a way to get truants back in school more quickly. He told the council in Marion County along last school year there were 503 referrals for truancy in the city. Dodson says 161 were not resolved and were taken to the truancy review board, with 27 of those eventually being referred to the State’s Attorney’s office.
“There’s about a 60-day time period from the time a student is identified as truant, 60-plus days until we can get them to a truancy review board. We are hoping that these 142 kids that referrals that return to school after the truancy review board with no punitive action. A city ordinance could speed that process up and get them back to school quicker. And the whole idea behind it is if the kids go back the school, the ordinance is dropped, and there are no consequences.”
Dodson says the number of truancy cases is actually 30 to 40 percent higher if Clinton County numbers were added. He admits the numbers were extremely high last year due to COVID-19, but even in the 2019-20 school year before COVID hit, there were 186 initial truancy referrals with 60 going to the truancy review board and eventually eleven to the State’s Attorney.
There had been a concern raised about a section of the ordinance that banned truants students from being in public during school hours if they were home-schooled. The city attorney said home-schooled students were not covered by the ordinance.
The old city council had tabled the proposed ordinance multiple times. It was passed unanimously by the new city council Monday night.
