Lawmakers tried to tackle the problem of truancy and chronic absenteeism in Texas during the last legislative session, but many proposed laws failed to pass. However, one bill is now on Governor Greg Abbott’s desk waiting to be signed.
Senate Bill 991 was filed by State Senator Paul Bettencourt (R) Dist. 7, who has worked on truancy and chronic absenteeism legislation the past two sessions. The bill now requires school districts to collect data on both chronically absent and truant students.
The measure also requires schools to now designate these students as being at-risk of dropping out, which should trigger a district to begin providing support services.
“The first sign of trouble when you’re looking at the student performance is chronic absenteeism,” said Bettencourt.
Chronic absenteeism is defined as a student who misses 10-percent or more of the instructional year. A student becomes truant when they have 10 or more unexcused absences within six months.
“The markers here are clear; chronic absenteeism leads to truancy, and truancy leads to all sorts of bad problems,” said Bettencourt. “If you measure it, then we got a chance at fixing it. But if we just turn the other way, let it go, then bad things happen.”
The non-partisan research and advocacy organization, Children At Risk, supported the bill.
“The bill really expands on the definition of at-risk students to include those that are chronically absent. So it’s really allowing those schools to provide that targeted support,” said Christine Thomas with Children At Risk.
Thomas said finding out why a child is missing class is key to helping them get back to school.
“We know Texas is 63% economically disadvantaged; what students are doing, a lot of them, are taking care of their siblings. Trying to work, provide income for the family,” said Thomas.
According to the Texas Education Agency’s data for the 2023-2024 school year, 20.3% students were chronically absent.
Bettencourt said his bill will also give lawmakers more data to help focus what laws need to be implemented next legislative session. During this session lawmakers were divided on whether stricter punishment or more support was needed to address this problem.
“We’ve got five million kids, plus or minus, that go through public education, it’s worth trying to save all of them,” said Bettencourt.
Bettencourt said increased data collection will also help address the problem of school districts not deploying more truancy prevention measures. State law requires school districts to implement truancy prevention measures before a student becomes truant. However, earlier this year 2 Investigates showed how dozens of school districts were not reporting whether these measures were being implemented.
TEA data shows more than 1 million children are considered truant each school year. Following our investigation, the TEA launched a statewide review of truancy data being reported by school districts. The review is ongoing.
“Your investigation was important because it brought everybody back to the reality of you can’t look the other way,” said Bettencourt.
Once signed by the Governor, Bettencourt’s bill will take effect Sept. 1.
