The Mancos Re-6 school board has unanimously approved a new expulsion policy in an attempt to resolve a few truancy issues.

At a board meeting earlier this month, Mancos Dean of Students Heath Showalter circulated a discipline report that which revealed the largest number of student referrals, nearly 20, was issued for disrespect. The district has also issued four student referrals for fighting, four for harassment, four for bullying and four for truancy this school year.

Despite the low number of student referrals for truancy, Showalter said the district currently had no recourse to adequately address students that skip class.

“We have no teeth,” Showalter said. “There’s nothing really we can do.”

According to Colorado Department of Education records, all Mancos schools reported a zero truancy percentage rate last year.

Apparently steadfast in his support to change the truancy policy, Showalter told board members that students who were habitually absent generally came from families that didn’t value education.

“No student has the right to interfere with a teacher giving a lesson or another student from receiving a lesson,” Showalter said.

Before the unanimous vote, Superintendent Brian Hanson advised the board that the court system wouldn’t resolve the issue. And board member Monty Guiles cautioned his peers to be mindful that some students face difficult lives at home, and their school absences were sometimes beyond their control.

Jody Kent Lavy, director of The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth in Washington, D.C., agreed, stating that truancy was often systematic of larger problems.

“Truancy is more a family welfare issue than a criminal justice one,” Lavy said.

For years, child advocates have argued that using criminal courts to address truancy only serves to promote the school to prison pipeline phenomenon.

Truancy is a status offense – an act that is deemed criminal only because of the offender’s age, meaning the same conduct by an adult would not constitute an offense or involve law enforcement and the courts.

Federal law forbids locking up youth charged with status offenses.

With the policy changed, Showalter said the district would be required to fully document the absences before entering expulsion proceedings through the court system.

tbaker@the-journal.com