COBB COUNTY, Ga. — A pair of Cobb County parents is facing charges after their children missed too many days of school.
Channel 2 Cobb County Bureau Chief Michele Newell dug into the process that goes into filing charges against parents in those situations.
“We have less than a handful of cases like this. It is in extreme and rare circumstances where there is a concern, a valid case,” Cobb County Solicitor General Makia Metzger said.
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Metzger says the school district will exhaust every option to get children back in school before warrants are secured.
“You have such a high level of absenteeism that the school is just putting its hands up like, ‘We don’t know what to do,’” she said. “I do think as a community, it is important to have some safeguards for children because you can’t have a future if you don’t have an education these days.”
Newell spoke with another Cobb County mother of five who faced a truancy case, but says it never escalated to criminal charges.
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Heather Nash says she has concerns about the process because her children missed school due to constant illnesses.
“They called me to pick him up from school because he wasn’t feeling well, but then marked it as an unexcused absence,” she described.
Nash feels the process should be reevaluated because circumstances vary from family to family.
“There are homes that have multiple children who, unfortunately, get sick at the same time, and a lot of parents can’t afford to take time off of work or even take their children to the doctor,” she said.
According to school policy, if children are sick, it is considered an excused absence.
They say they do not arrest parents. They instead focus on early intervention.
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