6:01pm | About six months after two new state laws went into effect that punish parents when their children repeatedly skip school, Long Beach police arrested a 43-year-old woman whose son has been deemed “chronically truant.”
Ermila Zamora was arrested Monday for failing to ensure the attendance of her son, who as of June 6 had missed more than 50 days of school since the beginning of the school year, according to information provided by Long Beach Police Department spokesman Rico Fernandez.
City Prosecutor Doug Haubert ordered Zamora’s arrest on June 6 after various intervention attempts by the school district and city officials to address her son’s ongoing truancy failed. Those efforts included five different meetings the City Prosecutor’s Office held with Zamora that included representatives of the police department and school district.
Despite those meetings, her son, a Washington Middle School student, continued to rack up additional unexcused absences, officials said.
Following Zamora’s arrest, it was subsequently learned that in 2007 she was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor in relation to her older son’s truancy problems, according to the LBPD.
She was released from Long Beach City Jail on $10,000 bail Tuesday. Should she be convicted of the misdemeanor charge, Zamora faces a maximum sentence of one year in county jail and a $2,000 fine, according to the new law.
A student is truant when he or she has three or more unexcused absences or if they arrive late or leave early by more than 30 minutes without a valid excuse over the course of a school year.
Long Beach Unified School District’s truancy rate is much higher than that of other area districts. For the 2009-10 school year, its truancy rate was 48.87 percent. Countywide, the rate is 28.15 percent.
The Parent Accountability and Chronic Truancy Program was launched by Haubert as a joint effort with the police department and the school district to enforce the beefed up state truancy and juvenile delinquency laws for grades K-8 that went into effect Jan. 1.
The truancy law defines as chronically truant any student who misses 10 percent or more of class time and allows for the prosecution of parents who fail to act responsibly in ensuring their children attend school.
The following is posted on the City Prosecutor’s Office’s website,
Parents and guardians can be criminal prosecuted if they fail to supervise their minor children and those children commit crimes or miss school. While prosecution of a parent or guardian is a last resort, it will be considered when it is apparent that adults who are supposed to be responsible for children fail to exercise that responsibility.