Kids playing hooky? Duluth cops can't nab them

When it comes to students playing hooky, Duluth police have their hands tied.

State law gives law enforcement the right to send chronic truants to juvenile court or to take other action to get them back in school.

But not in Duluth.

When local school districts have a county diversion program in place to deal with truancies, state law is trumped.

And that's the case in Duluth.

"Our officers don't have authority to say to a 16-year old walking down the street, 'Hey, what are you doing? Why aren't you in school?'" Duluth City Councilor Jeff Anderson said. "Police have no authority to bring somebody back to school."

Anderson isn't targeting juveniles who are home-schooled, accompanied by a parent or on the way to religious or school-sanctioned activities instead of class. But Anderson wants police to be able to respond if students are skipping school.

"Students wouldn't be doing anything wrong as far as the law was concerned," explained Bill Gronseth, assistant superintendent for the Duluth school district.

But a new ordinance being introduced to the Duluth City Council tonight would change that, making minors not in school without a valid excuse in violation of city ordinance.

"It will allow police the authority to go up to a kid and investigate where they're supposed to be," said Duluth Police Sgt. Gayle Holton, who heads the recently resurrected juvenile bureau. "Once we determine if they're supposed to be in school, we bring them back to school. The goal is not to tag, but to bring them back."

That can also head off vandalism and other criminal activity that unsupervised juveniles can get into when they're skipping school, noted Anderson, who is sponsoring the ordinance.

The current system leaves out police.

"The school district has some pretty traditional disciplinary actions that it takes," Gronseth said. "We make sure families know students are skipping school."

When seven unexcused absences are reached, the matter goes before a group of community agencies, which try to find out why the student is skipping school and decide whether to take the student to court for truancy.

"We couldn't really help kids until they were deep in truancy," Gronseth said.

The new ordinance would allow early intervention by police, bolstering the group's recent restructuring to deal with truant youths more quickly.

The new ordinance could also hold parents and guardians accountable if they knowingly allow minors to skip school. As with truant students, it's an ordinance violation that could result in tickets and fines.

But criminalizing isn't the intent, Holton said.

"The main goal is not to ticket, it's just to get kids back to school," he said.