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Apr 27, 2009 2:00 pm US/Central
Texas Student Jailed For Skipping School
FORT WORTH (CBS) ―
A Fort Worth teenager is learning the hard way the consequences of
missing school.
Chrishana Heath, 18, spent the weekend in jail after
skipping too many classes, reports CBS station KTVT-TV in Dallas.
Heath's mother, Delisa Miller, says her daughter has racked up 18 unexcused absences at Trimble Tech High School so far this year.
So last month, a judge at the Fort Worth Attendance Court ordered her not to miss any more classes.
But at a compliance hearing Friday the judge found out Heath had skipped school again. So she was arrested on the spot for truancy. Heath was sent to the Mansfield Jail, which houses some of Fort Worth's prisoners under a contract with the city.
"I know she missed school," Miller said, "but it's like the days she did miss it's like, it's not the credits that she needs. She already has enough credits to graduate."
Miller says her daughter has never been in trouble before. Heath's report card shows she has a 2.89 grade point average, and she's already applying to get into college.
"I'm not saying she shouldn't have a punishment," Miller said. "She's a good child, and I just feel like it's ridiculous -- the punishment. I cried when they told me she was going to Mansfield."
The Texas Education Code allows truancy cases to be heard by municipal courts. According to city documents, Fort Worth's truancy intervention program is aimed at aggressively treating the problem.
Usually, offenders are fined up to $500. But in extreme cases they can be arrested. And if the student is 18, like Heath, that means going to jail -- not juvenile detention.
Her mother thinks truancy is not as severe as other crimes that get people sent to the same jail that housed her daughter.
"You know, it's drug addicts," Miller said. "It's people that's really committed real crimes. I don't think absences should be a crime. I hope they change the policy. They got to do something better."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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