0:00:05.3 Vickie Brett: Welcome to the Inclusive Education Project. I'm Vickie Brett.

0:00:08.9 Amanda Selogie: I'm Amanda Selogie. We're two civil rights lawyers on a mission to change the conversation about education, civil rights, and modern activism.

0:00:19.3 Vickie Brett: Each week we're gonna explore new topics which are going to educate and empower others.

0:00:25.8 Amanda Selogie: And give them a platform to enact change in education and level the playing field.

0:00:33.1 Vickie Brett: Welcome, welcome, listeners.

0:00:35.1 Amanda Selogie: Hi, friends.

0:00:36.0 Vickie Brett: Hope everybody is surviving. That's what it feels like. Especially it feels like mid... Well, yeah, it's mid October and typically October for us is very busy. People have been in school for a month, maybe two months. We're hitting that honeymoon phase is over. Child's in a new placement and like...

0:00:56.1 Amanda Selogie: It should have said the fan. Well, and also we're now in this time crunch of if we don't get it done now, it will be winter break before we know it and then we can't get anything done. Or like I was talking to a client the other day, I was like, hey, they gave an assessment plan. We don't want to delay on this any further because we are getting to winter break when we're talking about reviewing these assessments. Like, the 60 day window is here. It happens quick.

0:01:19.8 Vickie Brett: It does. And then like you said, we kind of spill into the holidays and then it just kind of gets trickier and trickier in scheduling for everyone. So we often have a lot of gymnastics in our scheduling just to try to make things work. But we hope you guys are hanging in there. And we wanted to bring a pretty lively topic that Amanda had discussed on our IG just recently.

0:01:45.1 Amanda Selogie: Yeah. So last week I shared a very quick video about a new update of California law. So if you're in California, this might be more pertinent to you than if you're outside. But I do know that other states have similar laws and situations, so it still might apply. And what we're going to talk about still relates. But essentially, on October 1, 2025, our California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law California Assembly Bill 461. And this law sets to repeal a previous 2011 law, which is sometimes referred as the Kamala Harris era truancy law. It was brought up a lot during the election previously. But what this 2011 truancy law did was it said that any student that is chronically truant, so missing 10% or more of school days could face criminal penalties on their parents, or if the child is 18, on them of a misdemeanor, from fines up $2,000 and up to a year in jail for this chronic truancy. This law was meant to really combat chronic absenteeism that they saw at the time. Clearly we still see that as an issue for various reasons, but the law was to try to do this.

0:03:05.7 Amanda Selogie: But what happened is it created punishment for kids missing school, which was highly inappropriate because of the majority of kids who are chronically truant, there is an underlying reason that should be addressed rather than punishment. And the law disproportionately affected low income students and what we saw often also students with disabilities, and especially if they fell into both of those categories. So this new law, Assembly Bill 461, repeals that 2011 law and sets forth a plan for supportive strategies instead of punishment. So strategies like counseling and family outreach, essentially alternatives to this criminal prosecution and penalties.

0:03:50.3 Vickie Brett: Yeah, it definitely was from the perspective of a prosecutor at the time she was in San Francisco. And there are various reasons for absences. We see a lot of chronic illness, lack of housing, all of the specialized populations that we deal with. Maybe there's not a safe path to school. There's community violence. Maybe something bad happened at school.

0:04:13.2 Amanda Selogie: Mental health, disabilities, medical conditions.

0:04:16.0 Vickie Brett: Yeah, disabilities, lack of engagement. And it kind of was this time this like fever dream of, like, "parents, you need to do your job and get your kids to school." And that pretty much quickly backfired when one of the first people that was arrested in Orange County, Buena park, Ms. Peoples. Her daughter suffers from sickle cell anemia. Was at Chalk Hospital the day that her mom was arrest and camera people were there. And so it was made to be this big a douche. She is a woman of color and it sometimes is too much pain for her daughter to leave. And although the mother was in communication with the district, they were aware of the medical need. They had had doctor's notes that had been provided where it's like sometimes she's just going to randomly miss. And this was the person that they decided that they were going to arrest. What's very important, I think, to point out as a special education attorney, she, Ms. Peoples' claims, she was actually fighting with the school district to get additional accommodations. They had had something put together.

0:05:29.6 Vickie Brett: But she was actually fighting for more under an IEP. And she claimed at the time she was arrested in 2019, that the school had rejected that. And so there was a lot of backfire. I'm getting a lot of this information from a Huffington post article from 2019, ahead of the 2020 run of Ms. Harris in the 2020 campaign the first time around, which she then walked back. And she agrees just similarly to how Gavin Newsom has written the law that will go effect January of 26, 2026, that it's a social issue and trying to criminalize it was never going to help. And so then offering those services and support, and she had even said, I believe on the campaign trail in response to Ms. Peoples getting arrested, that, like, that's not what she wanted. And now she knows parents need more support. And it was great to hear her say that, but I'm so happy that this will be done with.

0:06:33.6 Amanda Selogie: Yeah. I mean, the intention was to combat a problem, not to become a punishment. But what we see from far too often is school districts will take anything they can to try to get their way. And in many cases, we see things being used in retaliatory measures. And in this case, I believe that is exactly what happened. And we've had cases where we've had referrals to the SAR Board, the Student Advisory Review Board, which is this process. We've had this as a form of retaliation. Families will come to us terrified because they get this letter saying that they're being referred to the district attorney's office because their child has been truant. Families sometimes will get attendance letters. I've seen this many times before where it's like, your child has missed more. Da, da, da, da. They're in risk of being considered truant, which is a violation of the law, because we have truancy laws on the books that say that kids must be in school. But the effect is these letters are very scary for parents to receive. Especially most of them are the families who are actively trying to get their child into school.

0:07:44.5 Amanda Selogie: The majority of situations where kids are not in school that we see, but even in other cases too, the families are trying to do what they can. You know, maybe there's a single parent who's working two jobs, and there's only so much they can do. The teenage kid is taking a job to pay for food on their table, and they're choosing to go to work instead of going to school. There's so many situations that occur with kiddos not going to school, things the school could be doing to support them before it got to that point and the school just didn't or just ignored it. And so from the prosecutorial perspective, there's a truancy law. We're going to have punishment for violations. But when it comes to kids and things that are outside of the control of parents, it's not like we have a law on immunizations. They don't get immunizations. They can't go to public school. Pretty black and white, right? There's a few exceptions in the past. Pretty black and white. But this is very different. We have to look at what are the underlying reasons why the child is missing so much school. The schools should be looking at it and by not having this as something they can hang over parents heads. Because this is literally the case that we've seen where, I mean, I've had clients where I have to reach out to the district attorney myself and be like, hey, do you know this kid is...

0:08:59.7 Vickie Brett: Yeah, I remember.

0:09:01.1 Amanda Selogie: Like I've had this multiple times where I've had to be like, hey this kid is an IEP? Why are you even referring for this? And they go, oh yeah, of course not. But in those instances, like what you were talking about with people, like they're fighting to get an IEP and the schools think that just because they don't have an IEP, they don't have to follow any different rules. And so these kiddos that were slipped into the cracks, that didn't have IEPs yet were some of the most common situations where these families were getting referred to for or even just the threatening letters.

0:09:31.8 Vickie Brett: It's like a systematic barrier, right? Like the child's not going because of bullying, and so then it's like a systematic breakdown. And so that's where the resources need to go. Because punitive punishment, we know the research is there, it is not effective. Truancy is like missing school unless there's a valid reason. Okay, what constitutes a valid reason? We know that religious observant of days, a religious days or illness should be valid excuses. However, there can be plenty of reasons. There's bullying, is that not a valid excuse? And so then that child is truant and then they can refer them. And so then there was a lot of discretion in that. It's like, how much school has a child miss not why. And so then there's a disconnect there. And you know, just taking that back and then putting the focus more on like you need to have an effective approach because like these letters were so template and then just automatically would go. But then the minute that if it annoyed the parent enough, all I do is I send a letter and then those letters stop. So it's not something that it's like, well, we have to send these letters.

0:10:37.5 Vickie Brett: It's basically a joke. Right? Because they're trying to say, well, this is the notice to the parent. And it says the same thing, like, your child is at risk of not academically achieving. And it's like, yes, we know that. How are we going to make it safe for my child to go to school? Like, that's the problem. Right. And it's just like that's what oftentimes was ignored, but then the parent was at risk of getting referred or going to the SARB, the school attendance review board meetings. And that's scary in of itself. And so we're elated. Although we had a workaround with, with many of our clients, it still was not something that any parent wants to have to face. And if they don't know what they don't know, it is scary, scary. And it is something that it's not giving a past anybody, but it's like, let's take a step back. This has not been working. And where do the resources need to go? How are we able to effectively support parents that are working multiple jobs that need the support in helping get their child to school or whatever it may be.

0:11:38.4 Vickie Brett: In a community where there is a lot of violence, how are we able to do school walks where we all meet at the corner and we all together or whatever. Right. Like, that is the community and sense of like, how you as a parent can affect change moving forward if you have the capacity, which we know is less and less every day. But this is how local change can happen just at your school.

0:12:02.6 Amanda Selogie: Yeah. And even we've seen many, many cases of kids with severe mental health issues where they're having panic attacks and anxiety about going to school, whatever the underlying reason may be, and, or they don't get out of bed. And what is the parent... With the parent is saying, I need help. I cannot get my child out of bed. And yes, this is a home issue to a certain extent, but nine times out of 10, there's something going on at school that is making things worse for the child to not go. And instead of figuring out how can we support the child, the thought is, well, that's just your job as a parent. And I've seen kiddos where they're high schoolers. And so I had one kiddo who was like 6 foot and big guy and mom was smaller and she's like, I can't get him out of bed. What do you want me to do? I cannot pick him up out of his bed, shove him in the car and bring him to school. I am doing everything I can. I have to get to work because I have to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. Right? So I'm doing everything I can to get my child out of bed to get to the bus. But when I leave for work, I need support. And in that case it ultimately led to the need for residential treatment because in some cases it is severe.

0:13:25.4 Vickie Brett: And sometimes we see wraparound teams. And even if you didn't have an IEP, I think removing the punishment of jail time, you are going to now see a more authentic approach to collaboration, I would say, from the parents, because really what should be happening... We know the communities that were being affected the most were low income and marginalized populations. They were disproportionately affected. Ms. Peoples is a woman of color. And when that threat of criminal charges is removed, like, we all don't want our kids to miss. So what is a way in which we can like, look and connect parents? And so then that's what we're hoping the school attendance review boards will now be more of a process to connect families. Maybe if they don't have an IEP meeting, maybe it's those mental health services that are available, transportation assistance, maybe there's housing support. Like there are typically community liaisons at districts, not all of them, but at different school sites that are like, they're a social worker there and their job is to connect. But they're always like, we don't know who to connect with. Right. Or like, we offer and we don't know this is going to be a perfect opportunity to actually use their services in an effective way and so that we can connect more of those resources before we go to criminalizing.

0:14:44.0 Vickie Brett: Well, not anymore, thankfully, but any of the sanctions that will exist. Right, because it is hard. And we've had a lot of IEP meetings where it's like, this isn't working. So what do we need to change? Similar to like how you were explaining.

0:14:59.3 Amanda Selogie: Right, let's have a conversation. Yeah, let's talk about it. So this law will take effect January 1, 2026. We'll see how this changes things. Obviously from the punishment perspective, that's off the table. DAs can't even do anything. It'll take some time for school teams to be trained that like, hey, don't be sending these letters anymore. Or this is the new process.

0:15:24.6 Vickie Brett: Or changing the way in which like that, yes, as a parent you still want to know, like, what's that? But, like maybe connecting them, but in hopefully a more authentic way. Because, I mean, it's very easy to ignore a letter or an email, but to have somebody speak to you about the resources and give you feedback about them or like, hey, we've worked with other families. That also just helps continue to build that sense of community that we desperately need right now. The way in which this administration is trying to isolate and separate and have all of us fight each other, like, don't fall for it. Like, we need to lean on each other even more so. And hopefully this will if you are already having issues right now, just because the law takes effect doesn't mean that they should already now be thinking of other alternative ways of helping children where they can't wag their finger and be like, you're going to go to jail, parent.

0:16:27.0 Amanda Selogie: Right. As a threat. And even though this new law affects California only, I just. We got a comment on our Instagram video I posted that was talking about hopefully this helps with kids who are getting detentions and suspensions as a result of truancy. And my response was, under the idea, which impacts all 50 states and territories. Right. The federal law, there are protections for students who are missing school because of some outside factor. And the majority of the times there's either a disability or a mental health issue or a medical issue, whatever the case may be. Those protections already exist. It was just that this law schools tend to think that board policies and state laws override the IDEA, which isn't true. The federal law governs. So if you're in a state that has a truancy law, there's still an argument to be made that shouldn't. And that's what we always used in our individual cases. Right. Of, like, the IDEA trumps, you need to be individually supporting this child. Same applies in your state, whether you have a truancy law or not. So something to kind of think about as we look towards your IEP teams, if you're a team member, how you can be thinking about truancy in a different light for these kiddos.

0:17:36.9 Vickie Brett: Yeah, for us, I mean, like I said, we had some alternatives that we can use, but this just kind of makes things a little bit easier. And just to add this other layer, if you were in a private school, essentially you were exempt from these truancy laws. So these truancy laws were directly impacting low income and marginalized families. And our hope is that it no longer will and that these parents are able to get the support they probably really, really need and didn't know existed before. So if you have any comments or any other questions related to this, let us know. We obviously talked about this during the 2020 election run. So it was nice to revisit it in a positive way. Not that we weren't positive, but we were like, this is what we don't like about this because it was such a hot topic. But yeah, we we have a ton of good stuff coming your way and we are just so happy to be in your ears. Thanks for listening to us.

0:18:36.5 Amanda Selogie: Talk to you soon.

0:18:38.0 Vickie Brett: Bye.

0:18:39.3 Amanda Selogie: Bye.

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