Government Can Be Charged With Educational Neglect!
by: Gail Riecken, CCO Statehouse Editor
Parents and charters involved in virtual education have a wake-up call in SB 567. “Educational neglect,” once commonly used for talking about education issues and incarcerated youth–or parental responsibility and truant children–has been expanded to include school officials involved in virtual education.
SB 567 reads:  “In the case of a virtual charter school, the virtual charter school must include the methodology used to determine attendance rate.”
This means that truancy in virtual charter schools must now be monitored by the school and officials must have a way to monitor that the young people are taking tests. Schools must include their methodology and the results in a report.
This is great news! As speakers on the House floor at the 3rd reading of SB 567 said, children are falling through the cracks under this State government-sponsored 80 million dollar program.
And, do you and I have responsibility? I think so. We must press legislators to do more.
Rep. Ed Delaney cautioned that more must change to protect the children. He warned legislators that there is no punishment if the virtual schools don’t comply. Like public schools, these charters receive their per-student money when the annual student count is set; and they do not have to give back the money if the child isn’t there after that date.
Also, warned Delaney, there can’t be any follow through on monitoring in a virtual school situation since they don’t have truant officers, social workers or teachers who specifically attend to these truant children’s needs.
As Rep Delaney said: “Kids are adrift. Educational neglect can go on by a parent but also by the government.â€
