BALTIMORE -- Go to class -- or send your parents to jail.
That's the harsh lesson this semester at Canton Middle School. Eight parents were hauled into court Monday after repeatedly failing to get their children to campus on time -- and four were found guilty.Sentencing was set for Feb. 12, when each could get up to 30 days in jail, a $500 fine or even lose custody. The cases of the other parents were postponed, but all could face similar penalties if convicted.
"We tried all the incentives, all the positive things and there was still a core group and we knew that probably some parents needed a different approach," said Craig Spilman, the principal at Canton.
Spilman said 12 percent to 15 percent of his school's 750 students have "serious" attendance problems. Among them is Michael Pazdzioko, who missed 35 days during the last school year and 27 so far this year.
"Every day she gets up and they talk, and she asks him if he's going to school," attorney Susan Land told District Judge Charlotte Cooksey, explaining the difficulty her client, Helen Pazdzioko, has in getting her son to attend school.
"He says yes and she goes to work. There's not much more she can do other than quit her job and go to school with him."
She told the judge that her son skips school because he is "picked on."
Cooksey told Helen Pazdzioko that there could be no more excuses.
"The problem has got to be solved. It can be solved in a way you and your son like, but it has to be solved," the judge said.
Canton isn't the only school cracking down on habitual truants this year.
In Greenville, S.C., for instance, officials kicked off the school year in August with a "truancy blitz" -- highlighted by a trip to court for dozens of students. The children watched as a mother was ordered to pay a $100 fine after letting her son miss 28 school days the year before.
In December, a Fayette County, Ky., judge ordered a woman to spend six months in jail because her two daughters missed a combined 116 days of class over 1 1/2 school years.
And on Jan. 15, a Mississippi woman got 30 days in jail for violating a truancy law. She had failed to send her children for several weeks because they had head lice.