Lebanon School District Sued Over Excessive Truancy Fines

School District Sued Over Excessive Truancy Fines
A federal lawsuit accusing a Pennsylvania school district from imposing excessive fines and illegal truant children or their families, including a father ordered to pay $ 27,000 and a 17-year-old, a fine of over $ 12.000.

The lawsuit against the Lebanon School District, filed Thursday in Harrisburg by the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, on behalf of four parents and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the objectives of the fines imposed by the court said were above the state limit of $ 300 per violation.

She also asked the district court to stop trying to collect the fines that violate state law and remain unpaid.

Many state laws allow fines and even jail absenteeism, Pennsylvania allows for sanctions to be imposed after three unexcused absences.

The maximum penalty is $ 300 for truancy, and the fine can be imposed on parents and children of 13 years. Alternatively, a judge may order the parents to complete a parent education program or to perform community service. The district will not try to work with parents, as recommended by the State, before taking them to court, the center of the Act. The reduction of some fines Lebanon in 2009 after the NAACP complained, but the law center attorney Michael Churchill said the district did not return at least $ 107,000 in illegal fines or cease its efforts to collect another $ 127,000 in fines illegal .


The policies have affected the parents of all races, and the applicants are not all minorities, said Churchill. Some parents complained to the NAACP, which then turned to the Law Center. The district stopped illegal fines in the past year, he said.

In the past six years, the focus of this law, the district transport parents and students to cut more than 8,000 times, resulting in more than $ 1.3 million in fines.

In addition to the illegal imposition of fines, the district has imposed prison payment, even getting a person imprisoned for 85 days, the center of the Act.