One Million Truant Students, Billions in Economic Harm 
LOS ANGELES – California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today unveiled the first state-wide statistics on California’s truancy crisis which reveal that, last year alone, 1 million elementary school students were truant and 250,000 elementary school students missed 18 or more school days at a cost of $1.4 billion in lost funds to California school districts.
These findings are part of a report, In School and On Track, issued today by Attorney General Harris in Los Angeles where statewide education, public policy and law enforcement leaders were convened to discuss this crisis and identify concrete solutions.
According to the report, elementary school truancy is at the root of the state’s chronic criminal justice problems. According to the report, missing large amounts of school is one of the strongest predictors of dropping-out, even more so than suspensions or test scores. Annually, dropouts cost California taxpayers an estimated $46.4 billion in incarceration, lost productivity and lost taxes.
Attorney General Harris said. “These are children as young as five years old who are out of school, falling behind, and too many of them never catch up. This crisis is not only crippling for our economy, it is a basic threat to public safety. It’s time for accountability and to craft real solutions at every level – from parents to school districts, to law enforcement – to solve this problem.”
According to the California Department of Education, 691,470 California elementary school children, or 1 out of every 5 elementary school students, were reported to be truant in the 2011-2012 school year.1 Statewide, 38% of all truant students are elementary school children.2 One school reported that more than 92% of students were truant in the 2011-2012 school year.3
The Attendance Crisis
- Nationwide, approximately 1 in 10 kindergarten and first grade students miss a month of school due to absences.
- More than 250,000 elementary school students in California are estimated to miss 10% or more of the school year.
- Almost 83,000 California elementary school students have more than 3 weeks of unexcused absences.
- 20,000 California elementary school children miss 36 days or more of school in a year.
Information broken down by school district and county is available here: https://oag.ca.gov/truancy and: https://oag.ca.gov/truancy/ch1
Key Findings from In School and On Track:
- In California last year, 1 million elementary school students were truant and 250,000 students missed 18 or more school days.
- In some California elementary schools, 92% of students were truant last year.
- California school districts are losing $1.4 billion in funding due to truant students.
- Solutions from In School and On Track:
- California must create a statewide system to collect student attendance records.
- School districts must improve the way truant students are monitored.
- School administrators must meet with parents or guardians immediately when a child is truant.
- Law enforcement must focus on early, positive intervention to empower parents and students.
- Parents must be held accountable, including prosecution in the most severe cases.
The California Attorney General’s office will issue this report annually. The office’s Civil Rights Enforcement Section spent 7 months researching this crisis and convening stakeholders to devise solutions.
Elementary School Truancy Rates & Numbers by County (2011-2012)
Santa Cruz County School Enrollment = 19,379 • # of Elementary School Students = 5,626 • Elementary School Truancy Rate = 29.0%
The report is available in its entirety online at: https://oag.ca.gov/truancy