The Learning Curve: What Kamala Harris Can Teach Us About Chronic Absenteeism

Nearly 15 years ago, before she became attorney general, before she was elected to the U.S. Senate, before she was selected as Joe Biden’s vice president and before she became the Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris was San Francisco’s district attorney. It was there that she championed what has become a controversial law that allowed district attorneys like her to charge parents with a misdemeanor should their kids be truant. That means missing 10 percent of school days for unexcused absences.  

That punitive approach, which for years characterized schools’ response to issues like chronic absenteeism, has since fallen way out of favor. Harris herself has also walked back her support for that law. In all, the change demonstrates just how far the pendulum has swung away from punitive responses to chronic absenteeism and toward warmer approaches. 

The law: SB 1317 was signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2011. It allowed parents to be charged when their kids were chronically absent and carried with it potential penalties of a $2,000 fine or up to a year in jail. The law was just part of Harris’ crusade to tamp down truancy. 

“I believe a child going without an education is tantamount to a crime. So, I decided I was going to start prosecuting parents for truancy,” Harris said of her support for the law back in 2010. 

This may not be as spicy of a take as it seems on first blush. Research has shown that chronic absenteeism carries with it the potential for a whole host of negative outcomes. Chronic absenteeism, unlike truancy, is when students miss 10 percent of days in a school year regardless of the reason.

Students who are chronically absent perform worse in school, have lower graduation rates and, critically, are more likely to become involved in the criminal justice system. Harris has said part of her focus on chronic absenteeism was because of her realization while district attorney that 90 percent of homicide victims under the age of 25 in her jurisdiction were high school dropouts. 

On a recent episode of New York Times’ The Daily podcast, journalist Astead Herndon cast this focus as trying to take a “law enforcement view of the world and apply it to root causes of a problem.” 

The impact: For Harris, the ability to prosecute seems to have functioned more as a threat than a regular practice. She’s said she ultimately prosecuted 25 parents for such crimes and claims she did not jail any parents because of their child’s chronic absenteeism. 

That wasn’t the case across California, however. In many areas, including Orange County, parents were arrested. In one instance, a parent was arrested despite being able to show her daughter was missing school because of complications with sickle cell anemia.  

During her 2020 run for the Democratic nomination for president, Harris expressed remorse about the fact that a law meant to help keep people out of prison later in life led to the jailing of their parents. 

“I regret that that has happened and that, the thought that anything that I did could have led to that, because that certainly was not the intention, was never the intention,” she said on the liberal podcast Pod Save America. 

But Harris’ emphasis on the importance of student attendance seems to have had another effect: It drew more focus to the issue of chronic absenteeism. 

Amir Alavi, an attorney who serves on the State Attendance Review Board told EdSource, “To say [Harris] had a strong impact on the field is not a controversial statement, if anything it’s an understatement.” Chronic absenteeism is now one of the primary performance metrics the state uses when evaluating how schools are doing. 

The new approach: In the years since SB 1317’s signing, many districts and jurisdictions have backed away from punitive measures, partly because research has shown they’re not particularly effective. And in the post-pandemic educational landscape, where chronic absenteeism has exploded into a legit crisis, effective approaches to tamping it down are essential. 

In the place of punitive measures of yesteryear, districts have embraced practices that emphasize communication and trust. Those include home visits, campaigns to make schools more welcoming and enjoyable places to be and efforts to provide resources to families that may struggle with getting their kids to school. Those include things like bus passes or even backpacks. 

We’re still in the thick of the crisis, but there has been some progress toward increasing attendance. If that progress continues is yet to be seen. For Harris’ part, she’s said she would now be opposed to expanding the controversial California law she once championed nationwide. 

What We’re Writing 

• Ready or not, school’s back in session! In a recent piece, I previewed four stories I’ll be watching this school year. 
• A new report from the U.S. Department of Education skewers how San Diego Unified handled allegations of sexual harassment and assault. Investigators write that from 2017 to 2020, the years they examined, the district failed to comply with federal law on sex-based discrimination and failed to prevent misconduct from recurring. The resolution reached between the feds and the district requires a slew of changes to how they once did business. 
• We’ve spilled a lot of ink about a bill authored by a San Diego assemblymember and recently signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom. It prevents districts from requiring educators notify the parents of students who chose to go by a different name or pronouns than those assigned at birth. Now, Cajon Valley Union School District passed a policy requiring administrators to do just that. The policy may set the stage for yet another legal showdown about how school districts approach LGBTQ+ issues. 

Clarification: We updated this story to clarify that SB 1317 applied to truant students, which means they missed 10 percent of days in a school year because of unexcused absences. Chronic absenteeism is when a student misses 10 percent of days in a school year for any reason.