Local JP Asks for Texas Attorney General Opinion

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Posted: 8:36 PM Nov 24, 2008 Local JP Asks for Texas Attorney General Opinion Brazos County Justice of the Peace Tommy Munoz has requested an opinion from the Texas Attorney General's Office regarding the legality of a pilot program for truancy in Bryan ISD. Reporter: Meredith Stancik Email Address: stancik@kbtx.com

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Brazos County Justice of the Peace Tommy Munoz has requested an opinion from the Texas Attorney General's Office regarding the legality of a pilot program for truancy in Bryan ISD.

Munoz announced his plans for the program in September. The program would put electronic monitoring devices on students who skip class too often.

Those students would be tracked 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In September, Munoz said, "We're just going to try and see what it does, how it does and it may not work here and it may be something that we need to get more. Then, we'll need to get more, but we'll just take it a day at a time."

If the program gets the OK, Munoz said in September that it would get underway in the near future.

The plan would be to order 10 electronic monitoring devices at a cost of $20,000. It's not yet known who will pay for the program.

Munoz has said the truant students' parents may have to foot the bill.

To read the letter from Brazos County to the Texas Attorney General's Office, click on the link below.

Latest Comments

Posted by: Joe Location: Canada on Nov 29, 2008 at 04:14 PM

$20,000? The idea of a tagging program is stupid anyway - if the kids are going to skip class, it's only going to hurt them. If they aren't smart enough to realize that, why bother? There is something to be said for personal responsibility, even for (especially for?) teenagers. But adding on a price tag that big, especially at a time when the economy is heading down the tubes, the idea becomes just ludicrous.

Posted by: Services Worker Location: Wisconsin on Nov 27, 2008 at 09:42 AM

We actually have this program enstated here in Wisconsin. It is part of a larger Truancy Prevention Program that includes court appearances, citations for students and their parents, and a prevention officer who checks their attendance every day, calling parents and stopping by houses if a student is absent without an excuse. so far it has proven to be effective. students are placed on electronic monitoring if there is no improvement in attendance within 3 months.

Posted by: To Jeff on Nov 27, 2008 at 06:58 AM

"What happened to parental responsibility?" For some parents, it's NOWHERE IN SIGHT, which is why Munoz has to consider this step for the parents who, when he cites them for their kids truancy, just keep telling him: "hey, we TOLD the kid to go to school, everything beyond that's YOUR problem... and I ain't payin no fine, cause it'd cut into my beer budget on the welfare check." You don't want your kid tagged, ground the little hellion for a couple of weeks the first (and EVERY) time they ditch class.

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