Concord Schools: Students Will Be Fined For Skipping Class Under Daytime Curfew

Concord schools' message to students: stop skipping class or pay up.

Keeping kids off the streets and in class has become such a problem for police in the San Francisco suburb that students will be fined up to $500 for the third offense of missing class unexcused, $200 for the second and $100 for the first, KCBS reports. The Concord City Council voted in favor of the measure Tuesday night.

Concord police conduct truancy sweeps daily, averaging about a dozen netted students a day, according to the Contra Costa Times. Without a curfew ordinance, the most police can do when they find students hanging out when they should be in school is take them back.

But Mayor Laura Hoffmeister told KCBS that "often they're finding that the kid they return at 11 a.m. is back out at 12:30."

The new "daytime curfew" policy that KGO-TV reports could be in effect as early as this fall would help police as well as encourage students to keep learning. Parents who knowingly allow their children to skip class without a legitimate excuse would receive the same fine.

Education News writes that although parents appear to support the proposal, students are "vehemently opposed."

Exceptions to the rule apply for emergencies, students running errands for parents, on their way to work or if the student is with a parent.

Other cities in the Bay Area have reported reduced truancy with the onset of curfew ordinances, KGO-TV reports.