House Bill 410

Ohio House Bill 410 is something that I have been following for several months, as this is a huge issue in the schools and with the children I work with directly. House Bill 410 is focused on decriminalizing truancy and looking for more preventive measures and other solutions in dealing with this issue. 

A few examples of these new strategies were outlines on an overview of the bill found at (http://jjohio.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Legislative-Summary-HB-410-Passed-by-House-5.6.16.pdf). These being: The school must notify the student’s parent, guardian, or custodian that the student is missing school, the the school can start utilizing interventions with the student to assist in lowering the number of absences, then if it continues, the school must refer the student to an absence intervention team to create a specific intervention plan for that student. This team must include an administrator, a teacher, and the student’s parent or guardian and can also include a school psychologist, counselor, social worker, and representatives of local public or nonprofit agencies that can provide services to the student. If these steps do not work in limiting the issue then the courts will be involved.  

This policy is aimed at looking for alternatives to suspending children, which continues to hinder their academic success and availability to needed services gets replaced with punishments. The implementation of this bill takes a more positive outlook at getting the core of what children need. 

The full bill at this time can be found at the following link: file:///C:/Users/UMADAOP/Downloads/hb410_05_EN%20(1).pdf