Parents who received ominous robo-calls from Los Angeles school officials a few weeks ago warning that police and other officials would be showing up on their doorsteps looking for truants can rest easier today.
The Los Angeles Unified School District plans to dial back its heightened efforts to catch kids who skip school, focusing instead on finding other ways to get them to show up, district officials told NBC LA Friday.
It a story on the about-face, the Los Angeles Times reported that the district’s previous policy of conducting truancy sweeps near local schools and issuing $250 tickets to parents had only caused more students to drop out.
A student who had been ticketed told The Times’ Howard Blume that he supported the changes.
“When you're dealing with real-life issues dragging you down and making you late to school, the last thing you need when you get there is to run into police treating you like a criminal and making you feel like there's no point to trying anymore," Nabil Romero, a recent graduate from Roybal Learning Center in Echo Park, told The Times.
