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BY HILARY GROUTAGE THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, July 19, 1998
Skip school in Utah and your parents get a phone call. Keep it up and chances are someone
will come knocking on the door. To do it right, just don't show up for registration in the fall.
``I have yet to hear of a school district that even sends out a postcard or makes a telephone call
to see if these kids are buried in the back yard, locked in their rooms or married to their
45-year-old uncle,'' said Suecarol Robinson, education specialist at the state Office of Education.
Truancy is easy to handle during the school year, especially if parents and school officials are
on the same side. It gets complicated if parents are a party to it.
Such was the case of a 16-year-old Sandy girl who apparently finished the 1995-96 school year
at Mount Jordan Middle School and never registered at Jordan High School or any other. Instead,
she was forced to marry her uncle at age 16, becoming his 15th wife, she told investigators in a
police report.
Jordan School District policy is for school personnel to make contact with elementary and
middle school-aged students who do not return to school in the fall. Chronically truant high
school-age students are referred to the district's alternative high school.
The Sandy girl fell through the cracks.
``With more than 70,000 students, it's hard to keep track of them,'' said District spokeswoman
Melinda Rock.
The primary obligation for a child's education rests with parents. If they move or have their
phones disconnected, school officials often try to call neighbors. But, Rock said, if they don't
want to be found, they won't be.
``We wish there was more we could do,'' she said.
After the 16 year-old girl was allegedly beaten by her father and abandoned in a remote area of
Box Elder County, she called sheriff's deputies for help.
``She just wants to live a normal life and graduate from high school,'' said Box Elder County
sheriff's Det. Scott Cosgrove, who interviewed the girl after the beating.
The girl now lives under state protective custody and will enroll in high school this fall, just
weeks after turning 17.
How the system lost track of the child is troubling. Mount Jordan Middle School is located
across a parking lot from the offices of the Jordan School District -- where school policies are
drafted. Teachers at Mount Jordan remember her as quiet and absent a lot. When an art teacher
asked her why she was missing so much school, the girl said she was needed at home.
Utah's compulsory education law requires that students attend school until age 18, said Doug
Bates, attorney for the state Board of Education. Each year, a handful of parents are prosecuted
for education neglect, but when compared with the thousands of children who are not in school
any given day, the numbers are nearly insignificant. Last year, there were about 35 convictions in
the sprawling 3rd District Court area that covers Salt Lake, Tooele and Summit counties.
That isn't enough, said Rep. Duane Bourdeaux, D-Salt Lake City, who sponsored unsuccessful
legislation this year that would have made parents pay fines if their children were habitually
absent from school.
Bourdeaux contends that 25 percent of Utah's more than 500,000 students are absent on any
given day. ``That's unacceptable,'' he said.
His interest in truancy legislation comes from years of experience within the Department of
Corrections and in running his own business, Colors of Success, a company that contracts with
the Salt Lake City and Ogden school districts to keep kids in school and track the ones who are
not attending.
Bourdeaux said he is not giving up the fight, even though he faces re-election in the fall.
``When we go back to the house three times and they won't let us in, we know there is
something wrong,'' he said. ``The way the law reads now, it's difficult to enforce. We need more.''
The law now says parents must make an ``earnest and persistent'' effort to keep their children
in school or face a class B misdemeanor charge if they don't.
The issue becomes a bigger mess when home school is thrown in. Home school requests are a
common way for parents to withdraw children from school. Most home school situations are
legitimate, Bates said.
Thousands of Utahns belong to home school associations and attend annual conventions to
exchange ideas on curriculum and teaching methods.
But some are not legitimate.
``There are those cases where home schooling is used as an excuse to cover up abuse of the
worst kind,'' Bates said.
In some cases, students are kept at home to work or tend to younger siblings.
``It happens far more frequently than we like to admit,'' said Robinson.
Only a school board can approve a student's withdrawal for home schooling, but if parents do
not register students for school, there is little recourse and the child can simply vanish from the
system. The girl who was married off to her uncle was never withdrawn from the district for
home schooling, Rock said.
``We have thousands of kids that don't return from year to year,'' she said.