Truant Officer Hassles Private School Kids

This is your tax dollars at work in Washington DC. A truant officer arrests children on the street only to later determine that the kids have the day off because their private school doesn’t share the same holiday schedule. And it is too difficult for truant officers to keep track of all of those different schools. Oh, and there are no seatbelts in the child catcher van.

From WTOP here:

Parents are questioning D.C. Police policy after several private school students were picked up by a truancy officer and transported in a van without seat belts.

The incident happened in November, when four children who attend St. Peter’s Interparish School on Capitol Hill were stopped by a Metropolitan Police Department Truancy Officer and asked why they weren’t in school.

The students, two 8-year-olds and two 12-year-olds, told the officer that they attend a private Catholic school, which was closed that day, and asked the officer to call their parents.

However, the officer insisted on driving the students to their homes so she could speak with one of the parents face-to-face. The police van did not have enough working seat belts for all of the kids.

Police policy is that private school students who are out of school on a day that public schools are in session must carry a letter from the school.

Some parents find the requirement a bit excessive.

What a DC Truant officer probably looks like:

Private school kids must carry “papers”?