Michigan school groups are weighing Governor Rick Snyder’s proposal to help reduce the number of students who regularly miss school. In his State of the State speech Thursday night, the governor called for a state-wide definition of truancy.
He says it’s hard to address the problem when each school district has different standards for what that means.
Officials with the state’s largest teacher’s union, the Michigan Education Association (MEA), say a state-wide standard for truancy would be useful.
“But I also think we need to take into consideration what the determining factors and criteria are at the local level so that we allow our districts and our communities to still have some local control over those decisions,” said MEA spokesperson Nancy Knight.
State officials say they’re working with local schools to come up with an acceptable standard for truancy. It would need to be approved by the state Legislature.
