ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 8, 1996 TAG: 9609100025
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SCHOOL OFFICIALS in Virginia have long possessed, but made little use of, an interesting weapon against truancy: driving privileges for high-school students. Roanoke County schools were among the first in the state to recognize the potential for fighting absenteeism; the city of Roanoke and several other jurisdictions in the region have followed suit.
But for whatever reasons - inertia, parental pressures, failure to recognize truancy's significance - many school divisions have been reluctant to take advantage of the driver's-license incentive to encourage good school attendance.
Through a series of changes in the law that went into effect July 1, legislators may have intended to mandate the application of this tool statewide. But, in fact, the changes in several respects have weakened school officials' ability to address truancy with driving-privilege requirements.
To be sure, some of the new changes, complicated and confusing as they are, will have the effect of making it more difficult for some students to get their driver's licenses if they habitually skip school. A student under age 18 who is applying for a license, for instance, is now required to produce certification that he or she is regularly attending school.
School certification that such students are in ``good academic standing'' has been a requirement, but local school divisions have had great latitude in defining what that means. Generally, school attendance has been only vaguely or indirectly covered in the varying definitions. Presumably, schools now must be more specific - and that's for the good.
Consider, though, this less-than-desirable change in the law:
A 16-year-old must complete driver education, hold a learner's permit for six months, be in good academic standing and be regularly attending school. Or - and this is a huge loophole - the 16-year-old must have written parental authorization in lieu of school certification of good academic standing and regular school attendance.
This says parents can override the schools' requirements. Instead of putting teeth in schools' ability to address truancy through use of the driving-license incentive, it pulls their molars.
Educators in the Roanoke Valley are even more concerned that the legislature has weakened their ability to deal with dropouts. Last year, for instance, Roanoke city officials and others proposed that driving privileges be denied dropouts under the age of 18. Lawmakers nixed that.
The schools tried to strengthen their policies requiring counseling for dropouts and potential dropouts as a prerequisite for the driving license. The objective, of course, was to persuade them to return or stay in school, even if the driving license could not be used as leverage. But now it appears the schools can no longer require such counseling.
There should be no need to explain the value of early, intense intervention with troubled kids, or to recite again the evidence linking truancy to dropping out, juvenile delinquency, teen pregnancy and a host of other social ills.
The General Assembly is presumably aware of the evidence. It needs to correct, and soon, rule changes more likely to hinder than help schools' anti-truancy efforts.
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