Compulsory Education Laws (Truancy Laws) are Outdated, Barbaric, and Need to be Abolished.

The only goal Compulsory Education laws serve to achieve is control your child's life, and make your child a slave to the state. Yes, our children should stay in school, it is important that as role models for our children that we insist our children receive a proper education (another reason to oppose Covid mandates). It's the job of the parent to ensure our children stay in school. The government playing the role of the nanny only results in less freedom for you as the parent and more institutionalized trauma for your child.

Still, don’t believe that truancy laws are outdated and barbaric, take out your old dictionary and look at the original meaning of the word "truant." "Truant" is derived from the French term "truand," which translates into terms such as "parasite," "delinquent," (https://ce4less.com/Tests/Materials/E127Materials.pdf) and other abhorrent terms. We should not be referring to our youth as such. If we as Ohioans wish to see our youth succeed and trust their elders, we cannot insult them with outdated legal definitions.

As a not too long ago high school graduate myself (class of 2017), I saw far too often where truancy laws only served to negatively impact students who were suffering from some sort of mental distress such as Depression, Anxiety, and bullying. I watched as friends were threatened with the cold arm of the law for "missing school," when the reason these students were absent from school was they attempted suicide the week prior to legal threat(s). I watched as fellow students received legal consequences and threats of jail-time simply for trying to escape bullying, an issue far too often looked over by school districts of whom are fearful of getting a "bad report card" from the state.

Yes, our children should stay in school, it is important that as role models for our children we insist our children receive a proper education (another reason to oppose Covid mandates). It's the job of the parent to ensure our children stay in school. The government playing the role of the nanny only results in less freedom for you as the parent and more institutionalized trauma for your child. trauma for your child.

To prove my concern, a study from the Center for Developmental Epidemiology found that “Pure anxious school refusal was associated with depression and separation anxiety disorder” (Egger HL, Costello EJ, Angold A. School refusal and psychiatric disorders: a community study. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2003;42(7):797–807.) In that same study, it was found that “of mixed school refusers (children with both anxious school refusal and truancy), 88.2% had a psychiatric disorder.” (Egger HL et al.) The same study also found that even in the case of pure truancy, either a defiance disorder or Depression was a factor. According to the study, “pure truancy was associated with oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, and depression” (Egger HL et al.) This means that even with pure truancy, there is still an underlying cause of which the child should not be punished for.

In conclusion, school Truancy Laws cause more harm than good, especially towards students who suffer from psychiatric problems such as Depression and Anxiety. It’s time we do away with compulsory education laws.