FRANKLIN COUNTY, Ohio — Most students are counting down the days until the last day of school for summer break. But some kids and their parents are facing serious consequences for the amount of hours they missed in the classroom.
Garit Fell is a junior at Hilliard's Innovative Learning Center, also known as its online academy.
“With his mental health issues, until we got him into steady counseling and everything, there were days where he just wasn't having it. He was not wanting to go, he didn't have the motivation. Depression or anxiety would kick in and he would say, 'I can't do this,'” said his mom, Alanna Fell.
Garit missed about 90 hours of class last year and the school district reported him for being truant to the Franklin County Juvenile Court.
A student is considered truant if they miss 30 or more consecutive hours, 42 or more hours in one month or over 72 hours in a single school year.
“I was not thrilled about when I found out. We got really lucky and work with a really cool officer. He told Garit how it was, straightforward and told him you have two choices in this life: you can slack off or you can do what needs to be done,” said Alanna.
Garit is part of a growing number of kids missing out on too much school.
According to the Franklin County Juvenile Court, in 2021, 1,137 kids were reported truant. That number dropped in 2022 to 1,024 but increased by nearly 200 in 2023.
“Should it be a concern when we say numbers? We try to be data-driven,” said Franklin County Juvenile Court Judge Lasheyl Stroud.
Stroud says the ownership used to be more on parents, but House Bill 410 passed in 2017 gave the school district more responsibility for ensuring kids attended class.
“Now schools have to develop intervention plans, specifically as to why a child isn't going to school. Once they see there is some type of excessive absenteeism, they reach out to the family, they found out what is going on,” Stroud explained.
Truancy is the only area in Ohio law where parents can be held legally responsible for their child's actions.
“At the end of the day, we want children to actually go to school. This was never intended to be punitive even though they have the ability to prosecute those offenses,” Stroud said.
Stroud says once a student has been referred to the courts, the child could face unruly charges and the parents could face up to 30 days jail time and a $250 fine.
The courts offer programs and services in hopes that if the family passes the programs, the charges will be dismissed.
“We have amazing success rates in our truancy diversion program to where the overwhelming majority of youth, we do not ever see again in court,” Stroud said.
Alanna says it was that serious consequence that got her son up every day and back at school. She says the threat of having the truancy officer show up at their door and some tough love got Garit back in the classroom.
“Honestly, without the push, I don't think that Garit would have done as well as he has this year. I think he would still be kind of slacking off and everything. The program has worked miracles with my kiddo,” Alanna said.
It also has Garit planning for his future.
“I've been thinking about going to college or planning to work with eco-plumbers because they said they might work with me,” Garit said.
Most school districts in Franklin County work with the court on a truancy program.
In Franklin County, only 8% of students re-offend after completing truancy diversion. Columbus City Schools discontinued that partnership in 2020, but Stroud said they are working on renewing that partnership.