1. United States
2. S.C.
3. Letter

I am a constituent within the state of South Carolina, and I am writing to you today regarding my concerns with SC State Regulation 43-274. As you likely know, SC State Regulation 43-274 outlines means of intervention and judicial action to be taken when a child is truant from school, and becomes chronically truant. These means, for chronically truant children, of which there were more than 1,300 in the 2021-2022 school year, include the child being charged and incarcerated for a status offense. Along with the trauma of incarceration, this can cause the child to further miss out on their education, as well as face years of consequences for circumstances which are likely out of their control. In addition, as you likely are aware, the South Carolina Juvenile Justice System is currently not able to follow federal regulations largely due to the number of incarcerated youth, thus meaning these youth being incarcerated adds to an already large issue in our state. Finally, this regulation is shown by our Department of Education’s data to disproportionately impact youth of color, and impoverished youth. It is important to note that many chronically absent children experience chronic absenteeism because they are unable to attend school due to outside circumstances. For instance, students may be unable to attend school due to their family not having transportation, the child taking care of an ill parent, the child taking care of younger siblings, or the child needing to work in order to help with bills. Each of these difficulties is outside of the child’s control. I would like to advocate for the amendment of SC State Regulation 43-274. Specifically, I would like to recommend the removal of judicial consequences for the truant child, to be placed with consequences placed on the school and/or guardians of the child who is chronically truant, should there not be extensive and reasonable documented interventions done on behalf of the child. These consequences may be fines or restrictions placed on the schools, or judicial consequences or family service referrals for the guardians. I believe this will not only alleviate the years of negative impacts on the chronicall truant child which being incarcerated or charged causes, but also provide fair consequences to the adults who are more able to intervene and minimize the child’s chronic truancy. Please consider utilizing your position to advocate for the amendment of SC State Regulation 43-274, and help our struggling families, as opposed to incarcerating our children.