ROE #40 Truancy
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Truancy Officers
Joseph Buttitta Truancy Officer Carrollton, Greenfield, Northwestern 217-374-2411 [email protected] 
Regional Office of Education #40 attempts every avenue to improve student attendance. This includes contact with school districts, students and parents to find the root cause of truancy. If/when the opportunity presents itself, the Regional Office of Education works to coordinate support services and interventions to curb truancy. However, when those remediation efforts have had little to no impact on improving student attendance than the next step is the Truancy Review Board.
The Truancy Review Board was founded in the 2019-2020 school year. The TRB refers chronic truancy cases to the State’s Attorney’s Office for each of our four counties (Calhoun, Greene, Jersey, Macoupin). If, after a meeting of the TRB, a student has still not corrected their truancy, they may be referred to the court system where either the student, parent or both may be subject to legal penalties including jail time, community service, fines or all of the above. |
What is Truancy
According to the US Department of Education's Manual to Combat Truancy, "Truancy is the first sign of trouble; the first indicator that a young person is giving up and losing his or her way. When young people start skipping school, they are telling their parents, school officials, and the community at large that they are in trouble and need our help if they are to keep moving forward in life..." For more on this, go to: http://www.ed.gov/pubs/Truancy/index.html Statistics show that what may be "just truancy" today, can lead to:
What is the Compulsory School Age in Illinois? According to ISBE the compulsory school age is 6 -17. Formerly the compulsory age was 7-16. This means that any 16 year-old student that as of December 31, 2004 was still enrolled in school cannot drop out until they are 17 years old. Subsequently, any student that is under the age of 17 cannot dropout of school until his/her 17th birthday. 
Downloadable booklet released in 2015 by government agencies to assist school districts in reducing student absenteeism. DOWNLOAD PDF: "Every Student, Every Day: A Community Toolkit to Address and Eliminate Chronic Absenteeism." |