Case in point... here in Utah, we used to have truancy court for habitual non-attenders. The law was 7 total absences could land you in truancy court. The child of somebody at the legislature got caught a few too many times and the legislature pushed through a new statute that eliminated truancy court and created a vague, meaningless law that gave districts the authority to deal with truants how they preferred once secondary students have five or more accumulated half days of absences. Our district's response?

The district policy is to do NOTHING until the student accumulates 10 consecutive full-day absences. The penalty? The school simply drops you from the rolls and the parent has to come into the school and re-enroll the student. No real consequences for anyone. If the student attends even one class during any 10-day window, the attendance clock resets. You can all guess how long it takes kids to figure out how to game the system.

Stupid school boards and district administrators suck.