Putnam County Judge Threatens Parents With Jail Time To “Crack Down On Truancy Problems”

Image Credit: Putnam County School System / Twitter

The Tennessee Conservative [By Paula Gomes] –

A Putnam County Judge threatened parents with jail time last week as part of his plan to “crack down on truancy problems.”

General Sessions and Juvenile Court Judge Steven Randolph took to Twitter on Wednesday with an “important message for educators, parents, and students about attendance in Putnam County schools.”

In the video, posted by Putnam County School System (PCSS), Randolph stated that it was possible that parents could be “incarcerated for ten days at a time” for unexcused absences as part of his plan to get parents to take the responsibility of getting their children to school on time seriously.

Directly after this threat, Randolph states that he is asking for parents to work with him to address truancy.

Earlier in the video, Randolph stated that truancy leads to teen drug use, teen pregnancy, delinquency, and low self-esteem. Randolph then said that teens who are truant become adults dependant on welfare, with higher rates of incarceration.

“A school day is made up of about seven hours,” said Randolph. “And so for every unexcused absence that a kid has in school, they’re going to do seven hours of community service at our local recycling center.”

However, according to state law, there is no comprehensive definition of excused absences which leaves districts creating their own policies with regard to excused and unexcused absences. Excused absences are generally those that result from illness, a death in the family, or if a parent provides a note. 

The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) opted to use chronic absenteeism for its plan to meet the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requirement for a nonacademic measure of school quality or student success which requires an annual evaluation.

Randolph made no mention of the fact that starting in the 2018-19 school year, state law requires schools to use a progressive truancy intervention plan before filing petitions for truancy in juvenile court.

In Tennessee, truancy includes only unexcused absences and a student with five unexcused absences may be subject to legal intervention. Chronic absenteeism is defined as having missed 10% or more of instructional days per school year (around 18 days) and includes absences of all types, both excused and unexcused. 

PCSS is the 13th largest school district in the state serving Cookeville, Algood, Baxter, and Monterey. On its 2023 District Assessment, PCSS was given a 1.5 Chronically Out of School (COS) score due to 16.4% of the student body being chronically absent in 2022. 

Ranging from 0 to 4, the higher the COS the better the performance. The score can either mean a lower absence rate compared to other schools within the state, or demonstrating a decrease in absence rate relative to the district’s prior performance.

The Tennessee Department of Education’s website shows that the truancy rate in PCSS is up from the previous year’s rate of 11%.

By comparison, Memphis-Shelby School District has a COS of 2 despite having a 25.5% chronic absenteeism rate, up from 19% in 2021.

Williamson County is also at a 2 for having 13.3% of students chronically absent, double the students from 2021 when the rate was 6.5%.

Metro-Nashville Public Schools had 29.7% of students chronically absent in 2022, their COS currently stands at 0.5.

About the Author: Paula Gomes is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative. You can reach Paula at paula@tennesseeconservativenews.com.