GPS and Truancy

By Greg Bartlett

A couple summers ago, I interned with a local family court.  There were a number of juveniles who came through the court during my internship who were being charged with truancy.  A few times, their parents were brought into the system, too, because they were under a court order to ensure that their kids got to school and the kids still weren’t attending classes.  Sometimes the juveniles didn’t go to school because their parents didn’t bother to make them, but sometimes the kids would refuse to get up or would even get on the bus and then get off someplace else, making their parents’ efforts useless.

GPS & Truancy

For parents who are concerned about their children’s education attendance, or who could even be facing jail time if their children do not attend school, a new option may turn out to be especially helpful.  Some students in Texas who are also frequent visitors to truancy court have been testing GPS monitoring, which allows that the court to ensure that the students are attending classes as ordered.

The GPS monitoring devices, which are about the size of a cell phone, can track the juveniles’ location and allow the truancy court officials to determine whether or not the individuals attended classes as required.  If they drop out of the program or leave the devices at home, the juveniles can face jail time for contempt of a court order.  Apparently the threat is working, because the program is reporting a 98% attendance rate for students on the program, and a continued 97% attendance rate for those who finished.

GPS monitoring can be a help both to the student, encouraging him or her to attend classes and graduate, and to the parent, who no longer has to worry about trying to force a child to attend classes and to risk jail time if the child skips classes despite the parent’s efforts.  For family or truancy courts, a GPS device can help provide the answer by giving a case worker the ability to closely monitor a juvenile and to strongly encourage him or her to attend classes as ordered without having to follow the juvenile around each day.

During my internship, I saw many concerned and frustrated parents and social workers.  Without the ability to more closely monitor a juvenile and ensure school attendance, chronic truancy sometimes couldn’t be stopped.  GPS monitoring, however, provides the necessary supervision and is apparently helping truant students redirect their lives and start attending classes again.

Tags: family, GPS Tracking, parents, technology, teenagers