ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida lawmakers return to Tallahassee on Tuesday to begin this year’s legislative session. Among the many bills on the docket are several focused on school attendance.
Chronic absenteeism disproportionately affects children from low-income families and communities of color, contributing to achievement gaps in education. This bill shifts focus from punishment to support to improve outcomes for students.
In Florida, children between the ages of 6 and 16 are required to attend school, with school districts responsible for enforcement. Parents must justify absences, evaluated against district policies.
[WATCH: Florida school tackles chronic absenteeism with unconventional model]
Truancy is a significant issue across Central Florida, where six counties—Flagler, Lake, Marion, Orange, Osceola and Volusia—have rates above the state average for students missing 21 or more days.
To intervene early, legislators are considering HB 1181 and SB 1190, which would create a mandatory alert system. This system would require school districts to notify parents when students reach truancy levels.
Adrian Leary, an older sibling of a student, told News 6 he agrees with a possible alert system.
“It is very important because when it comes time for graduation and they’re like, ‘Well, why are you not graduating?’ ‘Well, they missed the X amount of days.’ So I think they should be alerted about that,” he said.
Teachers would be required to report students with more than five unexcused absences in a month, 10 in 90 days, or if a student misses 10 percent of school in the first 45 days.
[WATCH: Florida bill seeks to address chronic absenteeism in schools]
The Florida State Board of Education would be required to adopt a statewide attendance policy. Additionally, out-of-school suspension as a punishment for attendance issues would be prohibited.
“I think it would be better than just suspending them, because when you suspend them, they don’t want to come to school no more, like, what’s the purpose and point of that?” Leary said.
Central Florida parent Fatima Malone said she would prefer in-school suspension, including on weekends, to discourage absences.
“I know I had to do it like once or twice on Saturday, and I didn’t like it,” Malone said.